According to the Daily Mail, last week a UK judge ordered an accused Muslim woman to remove her veil in Court before he (the judge) would accept her plea.Can the court order that? Is it a contempt of court for her to refuse?I started writing this post a few weeks ago when a similar thing …
Tag: human rights
Monis v The Queen; Droudis v The Queen [2013] HCA 4: offensive post is not protected speech
You may not write to the parent of an Australian serviceman, who lost his life in the service of his country, and compare him to a pig and dirty animal. You may not call him a a murderer of civilians, and Adolph Hitler not inferior to him in moral merit. You may not refer to …
Nose for crime or just bad scents? Drug dogs and the search-or-sniff dichotomy
Last year, one of our readers sent me an article about one of two pending appeals in the Supreme Court of the United States about the use of drug-dogs and the admissibility of searches and seizures based on drug-dog indications.The two appeals are Florida v Jardines and Florida v Harris. An overview of the cases …
Continue reading Nose for crime or just bad scents? Drug dogs and the search-or-sniff dichotomy
Lane, beset and Max: public protesting apparently permitted
The Magistrates' Court announced on twitter this week that the DPP decided to not appeal the 23 July 2012 decision dismissing trespass charges against protestors at Max Brenner's chocolate bar in Melbourne from 1 July 2011. (The decision is available on the Magistrates' Court website here.)So, what's the effect of all this?Well, the first thing …
Continue reading Lane, beset and Max: public protesting apparently permitted
Charter to stay?
Before the last election it seemed likely that a Baillieu government would repeal parts of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006, if not scrap it entirely. Recent media coverage suggests neither of those is going to happen. The reform the government wants to talk about is a requirement that proposed amendments to …