A big day in the High Court today, with two decisions set to cause waves.
The first: a ruling that two Sri Lankan boat arrivals were denied “procedural fairness” in the review of their rejected refugee status claims. The unanimous judgement by all seven judges, handed down this morning, found those reviewing refugee determinations were bound to act within Australian law.
The second: a ruling that a provision in South Australia’s anti-bikie laws that allows the attorney-general to make a declaration (on the basis of secret evidence and without giving anyone a hearing) about an organisation such as a bikie gang on the basis that its members are involved in “serious criminal activity”, is unconstitutional.
Both are potentially politically unpalatable decisions for Prime Minister Julia Gillard and South Australian Premier Mike Rann.
So when it comes to the judiciary, maybe it’s best that the leader of the opposition keeps his thought bubbles to himself. Consider these decisions in the context of Tony Abbott’s vague proposition about elected judges, featured this morning on AM:
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Tony Abbott raised the spectre of elected judges at a community forum last night after members of the audience expressed concerns about crime and sentencing.
ABBOTT: I never want lightly to change our existing systems but I’ve got to say if we don’t get a better sense of the punishment fitting the crime, this is almost inevitable.
KIRK: Mr Abbott’s made it clear he prefers the status quo but nevertheless floated the prospect of moving to an American-style judicial system.
ABBOTT: If judges don’t treat this kind of thing appropriately, sooner or later we will do something that we’ve never done in this country, we will elect judges and we will elect judges that will better reflect what we think is our sense of anger at this kind of thing.
Constitutional lawyer George Williams appropriately shot the whole thing down:
WILLIAMS: We need to retain an independent judiciary in this country, judges who are free of politics and partisanship and the worst thing we could do is to mire judges in politics and to undermine the important role they play in our society.
The two High Court decisions announced today underline, highlight and draw a great big red circle around this point.
Thanks, but no thanks, Tony.
In the good ole US of A they make the same complaints about the judges anyway & they’re elected.
My understanding is Supreme Court judges were appointed via Parliament so one would imagine they reflect MPs & hence community views unless Mt Abbott is saying MPs don’t represent community views….Probably true in his case.
Since the Howard Govt would have had a hand in more tha a few appointments is Mr Abbott saying the Govt of which he was a senior member, got it wrong.
Is Mr Abbott saying the decisionsw were wrong?
Is Mr Abbot saying upholding the law is wrong?
Is Mr Abbott saying the constitution should not be upheld?
Every time Mr Abbott opens his mouth he confirm his complete unfitness for public office,. That there is a major political party that supports him is a travesty. He almost makes Latham seem acceptable
Perhaps we can start off by subjecting judges to regular drug and alcohol testing?
As the months go by Abbott is scaring me more and more.
On ABCTV Breakfast this morning it was revealed that 25% of the world’s incarcerated population is in the USA. Somehow it doesn’t seem to be improving their citizens’ quality of life.
The Libs seem to be taking their policy from talkback radio again, which will no doubt be incensed by the High Court refugee decision.
Abbott should read the speech given by WA Chief Justice Wayne Martin in November last year about Popular Punitivism, in which he discussed the penchant for the media, police and politicians to paint the courts as lenient, when almost all crime statistics are trending down and yet rates of incarceration are going up.
he points out that in the US, where judges are elected, candidates publish statistics to promote themselves as tougher in sentencing than their rivals. Consequently the US has the highest imprisonment rates in the world.
Counter to this, in all academic studies where members of the public are invited to play judge, and are presented with the facts of a real case and asked to pass sentence, they invariably propose a lesser sentence than the real judge had passed down.
The editirial was too polite to Abbott, I will not be.
Keep your ignorant big mouth shut, Abbott. Not a day goes by without you expounding unadulterated c-ap. You are unfit to be a representative of the people, to be a Prime Minister is absurd and Australia would be the joke of the civilised world. How the Liberal caucus tolerates the likes of pig ignorance such as you vomit, is beyond belief. To give GW Bush a tick for more intelligence than the unhinged refugee from the Jesuits really sums this thick bastard Abbott up.
Shove that up your pontifical extremity.