By CLA President Dr Kristine Klugman and CEO Bill Rowlings
The High Court – judges Stephen Gageler, Simon Steward and Jacqueline Gleeson – has refused Sue Neill-Fraser leave-to-appeal her murder conviction on Friday 12 August 2022 after a 45-minute hearing, and five minutes of conferring between themselves.
The judges said that the principles applying to a second appeal based on fresh evidence have been established by the High Court, quoting the Van Beelen case of 2017 (Note 1).
They were not persuaded that there were sufficient prospects of demonstrating that the majority 2-1 judges in the Tasmanian Court of Criminal Appeal erred in applying the Van Beelen principles in the SNF appeal in 2021.
Attending the leave application in the High Court, Civil Liberties Australia (CLA) was not persuaded that the judges, with all three of them winning their spurs mainly in administrative, commercial and constitutional law, were equally as skilled and experienced in analysing and comparing the evidence of forensic science experts and how the burden of proof might be – inadvertently perhaps – reversed in a criminal case.
Where’s a good and experienced criminal law expert when you need one? In the High Court, they are in short supply.
“Generally, the entire High Court process and hearing was a farce of the first order,” CLA CEO Bill Rowlings said. “It reinforces how out-of-date the High Court seems to outsiders to be, in specific legal expertise in criminal cases, in modern technology and in keeping up to date with cultural and societal change.
“If this is justice in Australia, it is poorly represented by its top court and the cast of ancillary legal actors who played out their roles in this case. This special leave to appeal hearing was justice as seen on a tiny TV set, with the stage appearing as if at the wrong end of a telescope.
“If the case represents the high point of Australia’s public adherence to open and transparent adherence to the rule of law, it’s not clear whether what’s required is the write-up of a legal decision, or the critique of an abysmal theatrical flop,” he said.
‘Disappointing, embarrassing’
CLA President Dr Kristine Klugman said the High Court video hearing was both a legal disappointment and an embarrassment to the nation.
“In five minutes, the three judges further destroyed a life already put on hold by a wrongful conviction. They condemned Sue to 10 more years in jail to see out her remaining sentence of 23 years, which was ‘magnanimously’ reduced on her first appeal from the inexplicable 26 years bestowed by the man who did not apply the state’s sentencing procedures properly, the now-Tasmanian head judge, Alan Blow.
“All this occurred during a ‘public’ hearing process that did not meet basic standards of being open, accessible, and able to be heard and seen properly, and being just plain competently presented. The High Court fails Technology 1.
“Sue’s option now? Seek parole for which she becomes eligible on 20 August 2022 and, if granted, then possibly be hassled for the next decade at any and all hours of the day or night by the very police whose poor investigation and practices CLA believes wrongly allowed Tasmania to put her in jail in the first place,” Dr Klugman said.
“Her other options are to push for a full inquiry into the state’s handling of her case, or to have another book or TV series or play or song or media revelation come to her aid, finally convincing the authorities they have got it wrong.”
There have already been three books, numerous TV documentaries and a six-part ‘crime’ series production running again on Channel 7), a play, songs and countless articles and e-media coverage during her first 13 years in jail. The pace of public criticism is unlikely to lessen, because the injustice to her is so profound, and deepens as time, and her life, goes by.
(In the internationally-known, infamous case of the “Dingo took my baby,” former Tasmanian resident Lindy Chamberlain served just three years in jail because of forensic science “evidence” that was wrong. The High Court had also rejected Lindy’s appeal, and she was exonerated only because of piece of the child’s clothing was discovered. Baby Azaria, whose body was never found at Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the NT, would have turned 42 in the week of the High Court’s refusal of the SNF appeal).
High Court low tech
If SNF chooses to seek parole, CLA points out that police everywhere have the power to treat a parolee abysmally, like waking them at all hours of the night as frequently as police deem necessary. TasPol has always maximised its powers in relation to anything to do with the SNF case.
As for the High Court, it is at least a decade behind the times in running video conferencing (and in other ways, which we will explore in future articles).
Why were the three judges not physically in the court where they should have been if the High Court is as incompetent with providing modern technology as it appears to be (see Note 2). The entire hearing gave the appearance of being fractured, disjointed, unsatisfactory and unprofessional.
“As ‘witnesses’ to justice, we were ordered to stand and bow to three dwarf-looking, robed figures running along the top quarter of one-only, about 50cm TV set halfway up the side wall of a court room the size of a suburban church. Their eminences appeared to us to be literally about 5cm high, if that,” Dr Klugman said.
“This was ‘justice’ delivered Post-it note size. That’s the small Post-it note, not the bigger one,” she said.
The High Court first, and last, upgraded its public videoing system in 2013. That’s generations ago in video streaming terms (see media release on their website).
One day, someone will mention high-quality Skype and Zoom and Teams systems to the Higherarchy. Maybe in another decade they’ll realise that a TV set needs to be big to cater for a potential audience of 50 or so people in the gallery.
Eventually, the High Court may realise that you can buy or hire a big TV on rollers, and wheel it into a court when needed, only, to keep sacrosanct their cherished wood panelled look.
Technology associated with the High Court has gone backwards, provable on the evidence of this one appellant. When SNF’s earlier case to the High Court for leave to appeal was heard in 2012, her Hobart supporters could watch through the federal court facilities in Hobart.
In 2022, the SNF Supporters Group, who have attended every single court appearance of hers for 13 years, were not able to watch these 2022 High Court proceedings. The High Court Registry would not even entertain the idea of making a video stream available to a court or other Hobart location, supporters report.
Appeal opens with barrister unaware
The 12 August 2022 appeal opened with SNF’s barrister Robert Richter, seated at his Melbourne desk, unaware he was “on”.
When that was sorted out, Richter tried to convince the three judges that in 2009 the then-Tasmanian DPP, Tim Ellis, had forced SNF’s barrister, the now-dead David Gunson SC, to counter a reversal of the burden of proof, which formally and normally lies on the Crown. Ellis had to prove SNF guilty: he hadn’t, Richter claimed.
When the presence of a DNA sample was revealed to the original trial eight days after the trial began (despite being known to the Crown earlier), it was claimed by the prosecutor Ellis to have arrived on the yacht Four Winds by “secondary transfer”, perhaps on the shoe of a police officer.
Ellis, Richter claimed, should have spelled out one, two or three scenarios in detail that would have put the DNA on the yacht. He failed to make out even one scenario precisely, Richter claimed, instead simply saying the DNA sample might have arrived on a police shoe.
Richter said that the owner of the DNA, Meaghan Vass, denied being at Sandy Bay where the murder of Bob Chappell happened 300 metres offshore on the night of Australia Day 2009. She denied being at the Hobart town centre’s Constitution Dock where the yacht was briefly tied alongside, and she denied being at Cleanlift Marine at suburban Goodwood where the yacht was stored for some time.
So how, and when, and where did Ellis’s mucky-shoed police officer (or officers) get the DNA on their shoe, Richter asked? It was Ellis’s duty to prove the case completely by providing a realistic scenario that would satisfy the jury’s test of “beyond reasonable doubt”, Richter argued.
Headless barrister pops up on screen
The current Tasmanian state barrister, DPP Daryl Coates SC, was literally a headless shape only (Note 3) under the High Court’s video “expertise”. He denied the Crown had reversed the burden of proof. He claimed that the two forensic scientists, Grosser as called by the Crown (Note 4) and Jones, called for the SNF team in her 2021 appeal, had both stated they could not give a percentage likelihood about how the DNA sample had arrived on the boat.
In other words, what were the chances the sample arrived there by primary transfer (eg, by vomit or other bodily discharge, in the place where it was found) or secondary transfer (walked aboard by shoe, for example). Which was the more likely? They couldn’t or wouldn’t say.
Just to put their ultra-cautious, non-comments in perspective, the DNA sample on the yacht was spread over the dimensions of a dinner plate or an A4 sheet of paper. There was no “track” Vass DNA found.
Vomit on deck during killing, or winching?
At various stages of statutory declarations made and withdrawn, and in videoed interviews, and in an appeal court, Vass had led people to believe she may have vomited on the deck of the yacht. This, it was suggested, had happened as Chappell was being killed by persons unknown (except maybe to Vass: she actually named names in court one day before retracting her evidence entirely the next day).
If she had vomited, it could have been when his body was being winched from below decks to up on deck, to be thrown overboard there and then, or slid into a dinghy for transfer and dumping in mid-Derwent. This was an SNF team speculation about the possible (in a case noted for speculatory claims, some given undue credence).
The DNA sample was not a minor smudge of very limited extent, like that from a cigarette butt. Obviously erroneously, we believed the huge sample area gave an unscientific impression to us, a mere lay TV audience in the Highest Courtroom, of being unlikely to be scuffled off a police shoe (or two or three or 30, into just the one concentrated location only).
But alas, Richter was unable to convince the three bureau-judge-crats to reverse their own thinking so that the Crown would have to make out a better criminal case for gumshoe transfer in a full High Court hearing, sometime down the track later this year, or next.
There will be no such full appeal hearing: a chance to un-reverse (as claimed by Richter) the burden of proof back on to a DPP is lost. Game, set and match to the Crown so far (Note 4 again, but see particularly Note 5).
Neill-Fraser remains in jail while the judges can continue to enjoy extra days at home (Note 3, again) rather than in company in court in Canberra.
Those like us, seeking to observe Australian justice in operation in open court saw it portrayed in postage stamp size on TV. Maybe that’s what Australian justice is: a photo verisimilitude on one side and sticky substance on the other, edged with perforations or half-holes.
There were tiny criminal-lite judges with no known (to us) particular forensic science expertise who held sway remotely on matters which turned on criminal law and controversial forensic science.
In between video interruptions both ways, the judges were haltingly addressed by barristers, one headless, before a standing/bowing audience admitted to Canberra’s No 2 Court without charge, into to the august presence of a little TV set. As another visitor said: “It feels rather silly bowing to a TV set”. Australians should not be expected to bow to anyone.
It appears to us to be not just symbolic that no “live” judges were present in the High Court that day. Maybe justice itself got delayed somewhere in the ether.
Note 1: Van Beelen is a South Australian case where the SA chief judge dissented from his two colleagues, and Van Beelen lost 2-1. Many eminent lawyers think the SA Court of Appeal and the High Court in 2017 got Van Beelen wrong: if so, how many appellants will suffer how many extra years in jail until someone in the High Court has a re-think?
It is a “theoretical” case, in that Van Beelen was long out of jail (he served 17 years and was out by 1990) when he sought to clear his name three decades on. Van Beelen is also mixed up with the Manock madness, where the state’s chief forensic scientist, Colin Manock, was not qualified to give the opinions and findings he reported to courts during 27 years of tenure.
By contrast, the SNF case is “live – she is still in jail – but is similarly bedevilled by different forensic science expert opinions among other problems, and by the relevant judges and lawyers knowing very little about yachts. The High Court itself was misled in 2012 in an earlier SNF leave to appeal bid because two High Court judges failed to understand that it is nonsense to claim one person alone could move winches from place to place on a large yacht (16.2m) in a very limited timeframe.
Note 2: Judges usually only work together in the High Court building in Canberra for 8-9 days a month for 10 months of the year. The court doesn’t sit in January or July. Judges don’t necessarily remain together at the court building in Canberra on the one-Friday-a-month customarily allocated to hearing special leave-for-appeal cases.
As they are so frequently “on screen”, the High Court should improve the video facilities for the public, for transparency and openness reasons, and to see the rule law operate publicly, as a matter of the greatest priority (like, hire a big TV set on rollers). It is our court, not that of the judges: some remedial legal education is called for.
Note 3: The High Court technicians had set up the video link to Hobart when Coates was seated. The moment he “got the call” (well, 30-40 seconds later maybe, when he found out he had the call), Coates stood up as if behind a lectern, whereupon his head disappeared for the next 20 minutes or so, during which he tried to counter Richter’s claims: all that was seen in miniature on screen was his torso.
Those of us watching Australian justice being acted out in the highest court realised that in this nation, justice is sometimes literally like a headless chook.
Note 4: What is now needed is a commission of inquiry into Tasmanian ‘justice’. The Sue Neill-Fraser case has clearly illustrated many problems in the island state’s systems.
Politicians with executive remain unwilling to press to right wrongs (damning papers lie unanswered and unrebutted in the Upper House). Judges appear to the lay person to be ignorant of relevant laws. Police, not well trained and supervised by interstate standards, say experts, are allowed to operate to their own peculiar systems and quality controls. There’s a prosecution system that leaves much to be desired, and frequently a lot to be corrected as well, because of mistakes and misstatement in court, and elsewhere.
As just one example of the disconnect between rhetoric and reality: the Forensic Science Service Tasmania is not (rpt NOT) an independent body. Its scientists work under (and get rum and rations from) the Department of Police, Fire and Emergency Management. The FSST itself and therefore the scientists are answerable to the head of that department, who is the Department Secretary…better known by his (her) other title, Commissioner of Police, Tasmania.
Note 5: Defence barristers may be rubbing their hands together with glee at this decision of a bench of three High Court judges in the SNF case. If a prosecutor can simply suggest that a DNA sample arrived where it was found by being transferred on the shoes of a police officer (or ambulance officer, morgue attendant, Deliveroo driver, take your pick), then a defence barrister may make precisely the same type of claim without needing to prove exactly how the transfer happened. The High Court has said that’s perfectly OK in a conviction…so it must work the same for someone defending a charge, or seeking to appeal a conviction. To help defence and appealing barristers out, here’s the reference: HCA special leave application (H1/2022, 12 August 2022).
Dr Kristine Klugman is President of Civil Liberties Australia (CLA). You can read about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristine_Klugman Bill Rowlings is CEO of CLA. You can read his background here: https://www.cla.asn.au/News/who-we-are/ (CLA Management Team).
Heavy, great work CLA, great support folks, I can only encourage and pray for Justice in Australia at this time as we consolidate. Owen.
The older I get, the more I witness, the stronger my belief the heirarchy think we are all complete idiots, and can treat us like convicts and the miners of the Eureka Stockade era.
Where is the respect for Dr Bob Moles, where is the love for humanity?
I am healing from my depression because of you good folks demonstrating courage in standing up for Justice. We can do it, you would weep with the knowledge I have from experience in Tasmania and what I witnessed, not just personally. Lets pray for a successfull rally on Saturday, in Jesus Name, Amen, Owen.
Thank you to Civil Liberties Australia for being in the court to witness this disgrace.
Shame on the High Court for:
* failing to be present in the courtroom
* failing to take time to understand the complex forensic evidence you were ruling on
* failing to take time to discuss thoroughly and consider that one judge had already entered a dissenting view therefore doubt already exists
* failing to ensure that people could live stream into proceedings
* failing Sue – and those of us who believe that truth is paramount
If this is what the High Court does on a daily basis, it is a disgrace to the justice ( or unjust) system in Australia.
Apathy is what is destroying Australia – if we sit by and watch this continuing, we are destroying one of the foundations of this country. Tasmania has already allowed this to happen. Time to stop.
Good onya Diane. Agree with every word and particularly “*failing to take time to understand the complex forensic evidence….”. Complex to me but maybe not others is the DNA exhibit that appears to have been resolved as the ‘plate size’ detection that belonged to Meaghan Vass, on the yacht as a result of someone’s footwear spread. Not sure if I heard otherwise but, did this footwear contaminate any other part of the yacht? Did the yacht contain any more of Meaghan’s DNA? Am I missing something here?
We have vowed to regurgitate DNA matter…but you and Diane need to bear in mind that the justices have the written submissions well in advance of the oral argument. It is not just a matter of 40 minutes listening.
C’mon now Andrew, I would go so far as to imply that most, if not all of your readers are reasonably well versed in the process of written submissions being read well in advance, or at least expected to have been even read. This was a disgraceful and dare I say it, an utter waste of everyone’s time. Disgraceful because as you indicate “…read well in advance”. That’s kinda obvious to us all when the High Court aficionados deliberated for approx. five minutes about a their decision in quoting the Van Beelan case of 2017. As one of the ‘average’ persons on the street, was this appeal over before it began? My point about DNA is genuinely not a regurgitating one but one of interest in that were there other similar Meaghan Vass DNA swabs found elsewhere on the yacht? I cannot recall anytime if that was mentioned and if it was did they come from a footwear deposit. I fully understand it’s late now for this but it took a while to find Azaria Chamberlain’s matinee jacket!
The point I was making is that the seeking leave to appeal hearing is just the final ‘moment’ in the process, following the detailed submissions. Not everyone seemed aware of that.
As for Vass DNA deposits, it was the only one.
Jerry a read of published decision may give you some clarity. Then it may do the reverse?
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/databases.html
This link takes you directly to decision
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCATrans/2022/128.html?fbclid=IwAR1CixuiNy6ie3GzxrB5eLTKcQZtlWRSvM-rUNQsL6yRDvYFKWvgnyI8hk4&fs=e&s=cl
A scary Farce ! Evil wins. People with no conscience.
Not only a scary farce ‘dear Countess’, but as Kristine and Bill point out, a farce in that their little tv was limited to only one channel, with no High Court handlers to adjust the screen shots of headless actors on the day. What a fizzer if you had to buy tickets to see the ‘unprepared’ stars of the show and yet again, no reliable viewing for Tasmanians. One hopes Bill and Kristine brought along their popcorn while they waited after the curtain fall and brief reappearance to pass on an anticipated award winning speech. Sad to think their day ( not the audience) was interrupted.
Rejected; email address could not be verified
For once, I’m speechless! PoorSue! I can’t help feeling I/we have some sort of collective responsibility for her plight and therefore a sort of shared guilt, but what now? Bob Moles is a shining example. He never gives up. Sue’s only chance to prove her innocence— and that’s what it has come to in this shameful saga— is an independent inquiry. We must all do our bit in whatever way we can to push for an unbiased hearing, at which all the cards will be placed on the table, nothing excluded because this bit or that bit doesn’t fit legal parameters. We must not allow the legal system to grind us down! I feel so sad it has come to this.
Agreed on all counts. I do think Tasmanians need to voice their concerns more – and more loudly. That is the only lever that will move the Government to establish a review. A big, loud, shout: What do want? REVIEW. When do we want it; NOW!
And there will be a chance to do that on Saturday Aug 20 at the rally.
Quite correct Andrew. I have been saying this for sometime now.
There is something very wrong here and it needs to be brought into the open. More importantly, Sue needs to be released from prison now. Tasmanian justice resembles that of China and Russia.
This leave application before the highest court in our legal system is a shameful disgrace, less than an hour and little more consideration than a parking infringement matter at a local court. This almost cavalier and shortshift treatment of a matter at the most serious end of the criminal law in our nation is a cynical betrayal of any hope for decentcy or competence in the administration of the Criminal Law.
This disgrace of this sham almost reaches the depths of the conduct of the original trial judge, then Justice Blow, who , by arrogance, or, legal incompetence, or both, was largely the major contributor to this whole, disastrous affair. His conduct to decline the overwhelming need to
recall Megan Vass, and the assumptions he made in addressing the jury were unpardonable.
The evidence clearly demonstrated a reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence. In accordance with the High Court’s decision, in Peacock’s case (1911), and applied since, the jury ought have been properly and competently informed and directed that that reasonable hypothesis SHALL be accepted , even over one or more competing hypotheses that maybe consistent with guilt.
On the Crown case, if Vass was on that yatch , then their case failed.
Hypotheses: (1) That Vass’s DNA ( in a large concentrated area ) was present because she WAS on the yatch and deposited it, as she has said, by nausea. (2) That the DNA was deposited from the sole of the shoe of a police officer or some person assisting their inquiry who, by some incredible coincidence, stepped onto Ms Vass’ DNA at some time , somewhere, in ye olde Hobart town.
Let the ( now) Chief Justice of Tasmania take the legal and moral blame for this affair and especially the years of the incarceration of this poor woman
Let me remind you, Chief Justice Alan Blow, and other Judges and Magistrates let drug dealers walk, not all, but even some hard drugs offenders. Yet Chief Justice Alan Blow sent a female Asian university student to prison, for, stealing books. What does this tell you?
How did he ever become Chief Justice of Tasmania. His conduct of the original trial must have shown to all Tasmanian government, burocratic and judicial appointment bodies, that he was a dangerously incompetent and prejudgemental personality . He really was the root cause of this whole miscarriage. Does anyone know wether he then went oñ after this trial to preside over other criminal trials?
We should be fair: he shares the odium of responsibility for ‘this miscarriage’ with the prosecutor Ellis And yes,
he has indeed continued to preside over other trials.
Don, in answer to your question, “How did he ever become Chief Justice of Tasmania?” — the appointment is by rank of seniority. That is, whoever as a sitting judge is next in line of having served the longest, upon retirement of the Chief Justice at the time.
“… Tasmanian Attorney-General Brian Wightman has announced that the Hon Justice Alan Blow OAM will be the next chief justice of Tasmania.
…
“It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Justice Blow as the next chief justice of Tasmania, replacing the Hon Chief Justice Ewan Crawford, who retires on 8 April 2013,” said Wightman.
“Justice Blow is eminently qualified to take on this new role, having served as a justice in the Supreme Court of Tasmania since June 2000. He has held many distinguished positions in a career spanning 40 years in the Supreme Court, both here in Tasmania and in New South Wales. Justice Blow was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1996. …”
There you have it.
The old status quo of time servers, as Winston Churchill described them, (dead wood floating to the top), again reigns supreme, irrespective of the recognition that militarised, imaginative standards, are in general a basicly flawed misnomer.
Our nations military has obsequiously and blindly followed exactly the same path, and the folly is replicated in the institutionalised structures and stratifications of our supposed community supporting emergency services andadministrations. When in house rank shapes organisations at the expense of credibility and professionalism the problem becomes aggravated. Bauble emblazoned badged up boondogglers do not an effective and efficient organisation make, and our history is chock a block full of their ilk, from Macarthur to Bennett and Blamey to the most recent of our queens required representatives.
Australia needs to sever its links with delusional aspects of our history, and surge forward independent of the cringe worthy cowards who still feed from the bowl of British Empirical catastrophes and cultures.
Thank you.
What an ill wind that was!
A serious Blow to the concept of responsible Judiciary.
The naivety has to stop.
The little experience I have suggests for Sue to get out on Parole early she has to 1. admit guilt 2. show remorse and 3. explain what she did with Bob’s body.
They will not let a ‘guilty’ person out early. Sue has to be guilty to get out early and to comply with those three points.
Pleading innocent will not get Sue out early.
Crowd funding is necessary for a civil case. It should have been done years ago.
What happened to the person who said Bob’s body was …….? Somewhere in the bush?
I wonder how that Felicity Ogilvie feels these days.
The whole of the Tasmanian civilian establishment must know about Vass, Devine & Gleeson.
It is so sick and twisted.
Where is Moles these days?
Actually no. In our national investigation last year, we found the following responses;
TASMANIA
1 – is admission of guilt / showing remorse an essential prerequisite for granting of parole in your jurisdiction? No
Here is the full report;
https://wrongfulconvictionsreport.org/2021/02/22/parole-not-if-youre-innocent/
Forty five minutes to think deeply about this complex and troubling case. Five minutes to reach a decision! What a farce. High time for an independent commission of inquiry to get to the bottom of this mess.
Justice for Sue, justice for All.
To further demonstrate the declining probity of all that is stated in Australia’s Commonwealth Constitution, please consider the false claims that both John Howard & Alexander Downer were complicit in, of the damning allegations of a secret pact engaged in by then Prime Minister John Howard, to continue the Massacres of the East Timorese indigenous persons despite Australia’s then government media reports.
The secret pact was intended to serve to the benefit of the Indonesian Military General Wiranto, who would claim its control over the soon-to-be depopulated Country of East Timor, followed by the Australian government’s clandestine support to the oil & gas company of Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, followed by the USA in their support for ConocoPhillips oil & gasfield extraction operations.
All had stood to substantially gain a far more viable return on the stakeholders in the Greater Sunrise oil & gas fields. See the below link to confirm the apportionment of all the partners of the above-referred oil & gas fields.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/timor-leste-buys-conocophillips-share-of-greater-sunrise-fields
(John Howard had later publicly claimed his greatest contribution to Australia was his halting of the East Timor Massacre (when in fact he had no hand in whatsoever halting the East Timor massacre.)
Were it not for the Australian Council of Churches and the United Nations plea broadcast across the World to come to the aid of the East Timorese people, the Admiral in control of a fleet of America’s Naval Forces positioned close by Indonesia had responded to that UN plea, the Admiral had taken a fast-shore boat into nearby Jakarta and was immediately conducted to the office of General Wiranto.
He went on to advise the General that his Sixth Fleet was positioned just offshore from Indonesia & was intercepting all radio messages between General Wiranto and the then East Timor-based Captain Probowo in control of the massacre of the people of East Timor.
That was to become the day the massacre had officially ceased.
(Ultimately this would lead to the arrest and secret trial of Bernard Collaery being pursued in a revenge attack for the exposure of the then traitorous Prime Minister John Howard.)
This comment report does also demonstrate the non-fidelity action of both Australia’s ASIO and ISIS, then I ask, how about the Seperation of Powers Act 1977, this report also alludes to Australia’s Supreme Legal High Court Justice system as acting in concert to the non-pristine carriage of justice in Australia?
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/House_of_Representatives/Powers_practice_and_procedure/00_-_Infosheets/Infosheet_20_-_The_Australian_system_of_government
Thanks…it may be off topic, but thought provoking.
Are you seriously expecting me to believe that John Winston was NOT the great WAR LEADER I always thought he was ? Next thing you’ll want me to think that my time in Vietnam–was based on a pack of lies about the Bay of Tonkin and the filthy Commies . And heaven forbid–Weapons of Mass Desecrating.
At least one has been before the cyber guillotine — “… addressed by barristers, one headless …”
See my tweet.
@MaddoPoppa
What we have in Ausyralia is an INJUSTICE SYSTEM.
The “Separation Of Powers” twixt government and The Judiciary is an affront to the notion that “Everyone should be accountable for their actions and corruption. The devious frivolous collusion between Judges, Prosecutors and Defence Lawyers is an anathema to the senses and a barrier to finding the Truth of any matter.
We THE PEOPLE must demand that their immunity be revoked and that a Criminal Case Review Commission that is independent of The Appelate Court is established in every State Capital City. One that has the power to hear new exculpatory evidence at any time following a claimed wrongful conviction due to False Allegation or the ASSumptions of a misled Jury, denied THE FACTS of the matter.
Limiting Appeals of Conviction to have to be exercised within one month of conviction is but another impediment put in place “in-house” by the Judiciary in attempt to create backlog, discourage
Appellants and denying them the right to research and investigate at to how and why they became a Victim Of False Allegations and a Justice System that does not aid them in any way to that end.