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Oz politicians in breach of law

The Sunday Age reports today:

"Australia's support of a new, retrospective terrorism charge against David Hicks has put members of the Federal Government at serious risk of committing a war crime, a leading Victorian silk and international law expert has warned.

Peter Vickery, QC, said members of the Government were at risk of breaching the Australian criminal code as well as Australia's international treaty obligations by urging the US to proceed with the present draft charges against Hicks.

Mr Vickery, an International Commission of Jurists special "rapporteur" on Hicks, said the charge of "material support for terrorism" against Hicks was a classic retrospective law which did not exist in 2001."

This is not be lightly dismissed. Government Ministers, especially the Attorney- General, are required to uphold the law. It seems they are, again, missing in action!

In the meantime, Richard Ackland, editor of Justinian, and weekly columnist in the SMH, considers the so-called charges against David Hicks:

"So after five years all we have are these pathetic and phoney charges. But David Hicks is still not charged. The United States is walking all over the Prime Minister's mid-February deadline. All we have is a weekend announcement from Colonel "Moe" Davis, a military prosecutor, that he'll be recommending two charges: providing material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war.

No one in the US can say with certainty when Hicks will be charged and it's even more timeless as to when he'll be tried. The case remains shrouded in political fudges and misleading pronouncements.

Just take the retrospectivity issue, about which there's been quite a "conversation" this week. The Federal Government made it an issue because, in adopting its faux principled position, it said Hicks could not return to Australia because there was no law here that existed at the time he committed his alleged offences. In other words, it didn't want to pass a law that applied retrospectively to whatever it is he is supposed to have done."

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