Al-Shifa Hospital No More: Sydney Fills the Streets as the Horrors of Gaza Escalate
Six long weeks into the neocolonial crime of the century, Israel continues the all-out carpet-bombing assault on Gaza and has followed up with a ground invasion, as it ethnically cleanses the Palestinian population of the region with genocidal intent, and...
McBride’s Guilty Plea Has Sent a Chill Down the Spine of the Australian Polity
“That is a fatal blow,” said Mark Davis, the criminal lawyer representing former ADF legal officer David McBride, as he faces a five charge indictment for having blown the whistle on the Australian war machine in Afghanistan, which had fostered...
Sydney Criminal Lawyers® Weekly Rundown – Articles from 13 to 19 November 2023
In case you’ve missed any of them, here’s a rundown of the past week’s articles: Prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann: Police Join DPP in an Attempt to Clear Their Names Police officers are seeking to join civil proceedings brought by embattled...
Court Suppresses Name of NSW Police Inspector Charged with High-Range Drink Driving
A New South Wales Local Court Magistrate has granted a suppression order in favour of a high-ranking police officer who is alleged to have driven his police-issued vehicle while driving with a high-range prescribed concentration of alcohol, collided into a...
Changing a Criminal Plea from Guilty to Not Guilty: The ‘Interests of Justice’ Test
In December 1988, American mathematician Scott Johnson’s body was found lying at the base of a cliff at north Headland on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In 2017, a coronial inquest concluded that his death was caused by actual or threatened violence...
Dutton Embarks on Racist Dog Whistling, as the Indefinite Detention Regime Crumbles
Indefinite detention has long been a questionable linchpin of the local asylum-seeking system. The oft-criticised measure has been one of last resort, as it applies to cases where people cannot be deported into harm, yet, as they’ve broken laws here,...
Australian Police Only Protect the Interests of Those Who Are Like Them
“There is a structural problem with policing, and it’s important to understand that in the context of missing and murdered First Nations people, women and children in particular,” said lawyer George Newhouse. “Like other police forces in our nation, it...
Expanding the Offence of Hate Speech Will Unjustifiably Impede Free Speech
The NSW government announced this week it is contemplating redrafting hate speech laws, as the criminal offence of hate speech enacted in 2018 has not resulted in a single conviction. So, rather than seeing the absence of convictions as evidence the...
Arrested Over Protesting Gaza: Wage Peace’s Margaret Pestorius on the NSW Antiprotest Regime
Friends of protest group Wage Peace converged on Sydney’s King Street Wharf on 6 November, the eve of the three-day long Indo Pacific Naval Expo, to highlight that it’s the arms traders at events such as these that profit from atrocities...
How Much Will My Sentence Be Reduced If I Plead Guilty?
A 64-year old man facing 23 allegations of historical child sexual offences, including having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16-years, has changed his plea from not guilty to guilty just hours after his trial started. The...
