The voices are getting louder about the whole David Hicks "process" and his now having pleaded guilty.
As The Age reports:
"A extraordinary chorus of jurists has expressed doubt as to whether David Hicks' plea was a free admission of guilt rather than simply a desperate response to coercion.
Representatives from the Law Council of Australia, the Law Institute of Victoria, civil liberties group Liberty Victoria, the International Commission of Jurists, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Monash University and the University of NSW said that Hicks had been subjected to exceptional pressures.
The most damning interpretation of the plea was delivered by Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters, SC, who described it as "a result not of a free choice, but of no choice".
"After five years in shocking conditions, with no right to see his family … any ray of light showing a way out would be taken, and it has been."
Mr Walters estimated it would have taken Hicks at least two more years to beat the charges if contested, and described yesterday as a "day of deep shame" for Australia.
"This does not get the Australian Government off the hook. This shows how far they have sunk from upholding human rights," Mr Walters said."
Meanwhile, Andrew Lynch, director of the terrorism and law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW writing in the SMH under the banner "Little comfort from guilty plea" says this morning:
"The public will be curious as to what happens now to Hicks and may be appeased by the Government's assurances that he will be able to serve his sentence in Australia. The Government will welcome news of his guilty plea and hope that this will deflate the issue significantly by the federal election.
But arguably the damage has been done, and not just to Hicks. Dissatisfaction with the way the Government abandoned one of its citizens to a foreign system as mired in controversy and delay as that of the US military commissions may linger.
Hicks's conviction will owe nothing to the speedy and impartial application of justice. As a result, even those convinced of his guilt can draw little comfort from this development."
As The Age reports:
"A extraordinary chorus of jurists has expressed doubt as to whether David Hicks' plea was a free admission of guilt rather than simply a desperate response to coercion.
Representatives from the Law Council of Australia, the Law Institute of Victoria, civil liberties group Liberty Victoria, the International Commission of Jurists, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Monash University and the University of NSW said that Hicks had been subjected to exceptional pressures.
The most damning interpretation of the plea was delivered by Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters, SC, who described it as "a result not of a free choice, but of no choice".
"After five years in shocking conditions, with no right to see his family … any ray of light showing a way out would be taken, and it has been."
Mr Walters estimated it would have taken Hicks at least two more years to beat the charges if contested, and described yesterday as a "day of deep shame" for Australia.
"This does not get the Australian Government off the hook. This shows how far they have sunk from upholding human rights," Mr Walters said."
Meanwhile, Andrew Lynch, director of the terrorism and law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW writing in the SMH under the banner "Little comfort from guilty plea" says this morning:
"The public will be curious as to what happens now to Hicks and may be appeased by the Government's assurances that he will be able to serve his sentence in Australia. The Government will welcome news of his guilty plea and hope that this will deflate the issue significantly by the federal election.
But arguably the damage has been done, and not just to Hicks. Dissatisfaction with the way the Government abandoned one of its citizens to a foreign system as mired in controversy and delay as that of the US military commissions may linger.
Hicks's conviction will owe nothing to the speedy and impartial application of justice. As a result, even those convinced of his guilt can draw little comfort from this development."
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