Mirko wrote "Myuran and Andrew displayed an appalling lack of judgment by getting involved in drugs." Well, yes indeed.

But the authors assertion that they "never previously run foul of the criminal law" may well mean only that the law hadn't yet caught up with them.

There certainly appears to be credible evidence (yet to be fully tested) coming from the arraignment of other drug import conspirators here in Australia that this had not been the first drug trip. These two men also knew well enough not to actually carry any of the drugs themselves in an attempt to evade responsibility. But the other members of their party all attested to being threatened into compliance by these two.

So I personally feel no regret for the loss of these two or any burning passion to campaign for them to be spared the known consequences of their actions.

Are those consequences out of line with their culpability? Having seen the dehumanisation of heroin addicts, I personally think not, though I respect the fact that others will disagree. But I would certainly argue that since the consequences are extremely well-known, those who still try to smuggle drugs through Indonesia deserve everything they get.

I feel there are numerous people and social justice issues for which I would rather spend time and energy.

Regards

Kevi

I have got a simplistic mind set.If because of greed you are responsible for the death and degradation of vulnerable people , you die.
All the sobbing violins and bleeding hearts will never take away the pain that is the lot of families who have lost their young ones because some rotten swine wanted to make an easy life for him/herself.
I do not care how these toads are finished off, just so long as they are stopped from doing any more evil.

This is ridiculous.

'However, as Andrew put it, “We are not Ivan Milat, we would never do anything that we thought would hurt anyone”.

This is a point that has been missed by some people. All legal and ethical systems have a hierarchy of culpability. Intentional harm is at the top, indifference or carelessness is near the bottom'

How can you not think that importing heroin into Australia is going to do anything but hurt people? In my view these guys were intentionaly hurting other people (supply them with narcotics) with the aim of lining their own pockets.

Hang 'em high I say.

gw

I too must be simplistic.

I agree with Mirko that the death penalty is barbaric. I would never wish to see it reintroduced into Australia.

That being said, I also expect that visitors to Australia obey our laws and rules, and where criminal activity occurs, these people be treated in the same way that any other alleged criminal is treated.

Likewise, as a sovereign nation, Indonesia has the right to impose the same morality - their country, their laws, their punishment.

Myuran and Andrew knew the risks, took the gamble and lost. I would expect that you just don't wander oversees and find a heroin wholesaler. These two knew what they were doing.

Although I am sympathetic to their respective families, I have no sympathy for Myuran and Andrew and whatever fate awaits them.

Tonight I will be sitting down to a humble meal of Bombay patatoes, rice and pappadums. I would like to be able to put a $50 bottle of wine on the table but I can't afford it. Hell I would love to dine out. I can't afford to. Should I turn to drug importation in order to secure a better lifestyle with more 'up-market' meals?

Mirko, what ever happened to the word 'no'? It seems to have disappeared from our lexicon.

Mirko, you say that capital punishment is especially repugnant but many millions of Indonesians disagree with you and clumsy polypragmonic behaviour by Australia's clerisy and anointed will only harden the attitude of the Indonesians.

Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran have been caught up in a world of confusion. In Australia the messages are 'harm minimisation' and 'recreational drugs' mixed in with lenient sentences for those dealing in drugs. Indonesia has a different view of those caught up in the milieu of illegal drugs.

Why don't we allow a sovereign nation to apply its laws to those who break the law.

Well, no, Narcissist. Nations, sovereign or not, do not have a right to arrange their own affairs in just any way that they might like. There are fundamental moral principles which transcend cultural differences in that they are presupposed by any attempt to be moral. Breaches of these principles justify intervention by other countries or (preferably) by the United Nations, first by remonstrance and argument, then, if the case is bad enough, by sanctions, and in extreme cases, by military intervention.

It is these principles which justify international law, including human rights law.

I would like to see how you would justify your claim that visitors to Indonesia ought to obey their laws and rules, and if engaging in crimes, should be treated like any other criminal, without appealing to principles which imply exceptions.

Similarly, I would like to see you justify your claim that visitors to Australia should obey our laws--or that we should. Doing so is not as easy as you might think.

What crap.

They tried to be players, they tried to be gangsters, they messed around in a country you dont take those sort of risks in. they got done.

Whether they dont deserve to die or not, they knew the outcome if they got caught.

They played with fire and got burnt. If you know the risks and ingore them, your fate awaits. This is their fate unfortunately, they might be good human beings deep down and they may of rehabilitated in the future, but if i told someone if they do something i will kill them, and they do it, what else do they expect?

Prohibition [of drugs] does not work. I just wonder what is in the minds of those politicians and bureaucrats [of any nation] who think that something which has not previously worked will ever become effective.

I have no personal axe to grind on addiction. I have never smoked anything, never done drugs, legal or otherwise, never been a heavy drinker and never been a gambler. But I would say it's almost certainly true that most addicts get that way before they are old or mature enough to fully realise the consequences.

I believe that addiction is a sickness. Perhaps basically self imposed, but we could say that about all the so-called "lifestyle" illnesses. Addicts should be encouraged to register at an appropriate clinic, where they will get suitable treatment and counseling and no moralising. If the only available treatment, at least initially, is more of their drug of addiction, then that's better than forcing them to prostitute themselves or commit serious crimes to put money in the pockets of drug dealers.

Some would say why should their taxes pay for drugs supplied free to addicts. Well, that's cheaper and more efficient than paying for endless law enforcement which never stops the illegal drug trade anyway.

Surely most addicts would prefer to satisfy their needs the easy way and the bottom would fall out of the illegal trade. But as for the proven organisers of the drug trade, well I really don't care what happens to them. And if they're stupid enough, or greedy enough to pursue their business interests in a country with the death penalty, well that's their choice.

Osbib.
Only a fool argues with an idiot, so I wont waste my breath. It is a miricle that your mother taught you how to suck. But when she weans you, you will expire.

As for the Bali nine,it would not be any loss if they all got the death penalty. Indonesia is getting to compassionate.

I have been to Indonesia on many occasions and I can remember the signs at the airport on entry indicating very clearly that drug traffickers will receive the death penalty.

What didn't these 2 understand about all the signs?

They say they didn't hurt anybody? What about the drugs they were attempting to send here to Oz. They were not going to hurt anyone?

While the lawyers and apologists are all wringing their hands about the uselessness of capital punishment they fail to acknowledge that it has a very low associated recidivism rate.

I love the way Mirko Bagaric tries to portray his experienced drug trafficking clients as just lost little boys who did something a bit naughty.

Heroin deaths in Australia were 700 in 1997 and this figure has now risen to over 1,000 deaths per annum.. Add to that around fifty deaths caused by Methadone.

Add to that, people killed indirectly by drugged up drivers or people murdered by desperate junkies who finance their habits entirely by serious criminal behaviour. Add to that the cost of running stupid "injection rooms" while patients in NSW die for a lack of hospital beds. Add to that the direct cost of $3 billion dollars paid by junkies for their drug, much of which is financed by burglary, muggings and shoplifting.

Dear little "Andrew and Sukamaran" knew exactly what they were getting into when they decided to declare war on their own community. Fortunately, they were apprehended in a state which takes a dim view of their murderous activities.

Bye, bye, boys. You wanted to be gangsters and you got your wish. The world will be a better place without you, and your deaths might spark some neuronal activity in others who were thinking of emulating you.

Unfortunately, the Indonesian justice system isn't one of the best features of that country. Firstly, they effectively reverse the burden of proof requiring the defendants to prove their innocence instead of the other way round. Secondly, they impose horrendously harsh penalties for drug possession. Thirdly, it's really about politics, politics politics...... Not justice. If you're well connected in Indonesia, you're got one hell of an advantage. Foreigners with no political connections whether they're innocent like Schapelle or guilty like the Bali Nine don't stand much of a chance. I'm speaking as someone who lived in Indonesia nine years and worked with the court system there.

Still trotting out that line about 1000 heroin deaths a year Redneck, why don't you check your facts, as you know it is in fact about 400 - about 18,600 less a year than are killed by tobbaco. Do I have your support to head down the steet and execute the local corner store owner?

And as for all the money spent by junkies and the crimes committed to get it, what do you expect when you make sure that the only people selling drugs are the ones you would least trust to do it? What a joke. The main beneficiaries of the current system are drug dealers (because they get to sell a product at incredible mark-ups due to prohibition) and law enforcement employees (because they get a job). The ones who suffer are the people with drug problems (because they don't get the treatment that might help) and the rest of society (because we pay for it all). I do find it amusing though to think that the big-time drug dealers probably agree with the hang-em high sentiments expressed on here - after all, they never catch the bosses, and the risks keep the prices nice and high.

Anyway, back on topic, I don't think much of Mirko's writing, but I think even less of governments killing people, for any reason, ever. And as for the argument that they deserve it because they knew the penalty, that would apply equally well to the person threatened with execution in Afghanistan for becoming a christian? Do you all also think he should be killed?

Hey bloggers, a raincheck, remember the AFP's (Australian Federal Police) role in all of this. Take an existential leap in this and reason what would have been Chan and Sukumarans' fate had they been picked up at the australian end. In all probability they would have been found to be middling players in this rotton conspiracy to import - no death penalty but a good wake up call as for all the rest of the nine. Don't consign them to the gallows because of misfortune, they deserve our ultimate compassion

I don't support capital punishment and doubt that I ever will. But I respect the right of a country to make up its own mind about penalties. While in Australia drugs are seen to be a problem, Indonesians obviously see them as a HUGE problem. Apparently bigger than the problem of bombing popular tourist areas like Bali. I have no problem accepting that Indonesia has laws and will enforce them. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with people who know these laws, know the measures taken to enforce them and still choose to break them.

To Mr Hellothere.

Even if your spurious claim that heroin “only” caused “400” direct deaths in Australia was true, it still justifies the execution of serious drug traffickers.

Once again, you trot out the arguments of the neuronally challenged. All we have to do to prevent the bad side of drug abuse is to legalize the stuff. Oh yair. Tell me, does it bother you that there is not one single country on planet Earth that agrees with you? Even those that tried it have given up in despair.

Why don’t you just admit your own self interest here? You love taking illegal drugs and you feel sorry for your pushers when they get caught. You need to justify your own illegal and anti social behaviour, so you dream up a moronic philosophy which pretends to portray you and your druggie mates as rooly, rooly, intelligent, far seeing social progressives, while the responsible people who know better are all idiots.

I predict that your sad condition will persist up until the time when you have children yourself and begin to understand the vital importance of imparting pro social values into your kids. At least I hope that you grow up enough by then. I have often wondered if the reason why so many of our children are dying of drug abuse is because of “progressive” parents who think that they are cool if they encourage their kids own drug dependence.

Absence from Australia might have deprived some people of the chance to witness the burlesque theatre known as the Australian legal system. We have had a high court judge who has been so honest that his file has been sealed for a number of years; we had a judge who patrolled the crappers at Wynyard station looking for young boys and was then driven home by the police special branch; a judge who should have been issued with a rubber car; and we currently have a high court judge who through his own admission broke the NSW Crimes Act for 13 continuous years. If the Indonesian legal system is tainted with corruption what the hell are we to make of our legal system?

Any arguments we might put up that less fortunate countries like Indonesia should aim to reach our lofty legal standards will be quickly elided by the facts.

Marko wrote:

"As a society, we are committed to the principle that we are not required to wear the full cost of risks that we assume. We don’t refuse medical treatment to drunks who walk into the path of cars, obese people are not denied heart by-passes and ambulances don’t travel slower when calls for help are received by drug-users."

What concerns me is that a Professor of Law would consider posting this comment. There is a world of difference between what the Bali 2 were up to and the examples givgen.

In fact it worries me considerably that a Proffessor of Law, someong responsible for teaching law would put his name to such a nonsense article. It says a lot about the standard of teaching they would receive.

wd

Have a look at what the same so-called professor says about aspects of the Cole Enquiry.

What does he teach his students? Don't worry about ethics, you guys. Don't worry about honesty. Don't worry about justice. Don't worry about competence. Don't worry about political integrity. Just concern yourselves with your own bottom line and that of your clients, just as long as they are prepared to pay you enough.

What do we say about lawyers? 99% of them give all the others a bad name!

All you rednecks consider this. You obviously want us to execute drug-dealers, but do you also want us to effectively reverse the burden of proof like they do in Indonesia, so it's the defendants who have the burden of proving innocence rather than the prosecution having to prove guilt. Does it matter then if we jail innocent people for 20 years or hang them because they couldn't find who put the drugs in their luggage? Would you prefer we adopt the standard of proof used in Schapelle's case?

Injustices leading to severe penalties can happen in Australian courts too.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=1251

And in case you hadn't noticed, this thread is about the two men convicted of being organisers in the so-called Bali Nine case and not about Schapelle Corby. If the topic of Schapelle did come up for discussion, various people may have different opinions. But does anyone seriously doubt the guilt of the Bali Nine?

To Mr Rogindon.

Yep, I wish that my country had the intestinal fortidude to kill the people who are mass murdering Australian teenagers and adolescents. As a former soldier, I do not se any difference between killing the external enemies of my people and killing the internal ones, except that I might have a lot more respect for the front line soldiers of my people’s external enemies.

Whether reversing the burden of proof is appropriate is approprite is up to the Indonesian legal system. I do not see where it is inferior to ours. Here in Sydney, the standard way for Muslim race hate rape artists to get off scot free, is simply to appeal and appeal their verdicts, until their distressed victims can not take it any more and refuse to give evidence again. I don't see how this fact makes the Australian legal system superior to the Indonesian one.

Andrew Chan and that Sukumaran character are as guilty as hell. You know it and I know it. People like this, who are not even Australians to my way of thinking, are doing incalculable harm to OUR society and murdering over a thousand young Australians every year. I find it incredible that you have more sympathy for imported mass murderers and serious criminals than concern over the protection of your own people. I sincerely hope that your house gets burgled in the near future by some desperate junkie, and maybe then you might wake up.

As for Chapelle Corby, with the arrest of her brother for cannabis cultivation and drug pushing, I would have thought that everybody by now knows that she is guilty too. If you want to believe in the fairy tale of her innocence, then dream on.

Ozbib,

Bit of an anarchist are we? Don't believe that anyone should conform with any rules, eh? Sheesh.

I'm a big believer in civil rights, particularly as expressed by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html). Apply the first few to Camp X-Ray.

But let's look at a particular example of human rights.The United States has a Bill of Rights. These 'inalienable' rights include the right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Let's look at the second - Liberty. If all Americans have the right to 'Liberty' then why do they need gaols? Simple, under certain circumstances, human rights may be suspended. In 14 (I think) US States, even the right to 'Life' can be suspended.

The Bali Nine knew without any doubt, that the penalty for drug trafficing in Indonesia could include the suspension of the "Right to Life", as allowed for in the UN's Convention of Civil an Political Rights.

They gambled with their lives and lost.

I wonder how many Australian lives have already been saved by the fate of these two?

How many similar plans by small-time would-be drug-runners have been nipped in the bud, or delayed for a while? As an example of what does happen, as opposed to a hypothetical worst-case scenario, it surely has to have had some impact on even the feeblest of criminal minds.

And if the importation of dangerous drugs has been interrupted even for a short while, how many impressionable and weak-willed youths have been prevented, through lack of opportunity, from taking that first step.

I don't know the answer any more than you do. But I believe that the statistics tell us that when supplies are impacted, the street price rises. So it may not stop the addict, who simply needs to nick a few more DVD players, or whatever is today's druggie currency, to keep going. But the rise in the threshold price might just act as an additional deterrent.

My response to the article itself is simple: we need to be very careful about criticising another country for its laws, simply because some members of our society disagree with them. It is cultural arrogance of the highest order, and will continue to make enemies of our neighbours until we learn to respect their sovereignty in all its manifestations.

I would wish that ALL drug runners be arrested in Asian countries. Then they would get exactly what they deserve.
Here they get a few years in a comfortable prison with pay.
Probably enough to set them up to begin their filthy trade when they are released.

There must be a dynamic shift in our approach to compating drug use. Currently about 80% of resources are spent on policing, while only 20% is spent on healthcare and education. This must be reversed! Drug use must be seen as a health concern not a criminal concern. The failure of policing is evident by the previlence of drugs in correctional facilities.

Dear redneck, resorting to abuse is a clear indication that you can't handle the facts or my arguments. Just to fire you up some more, here's a link about heroin deaths in 2003 for you. 357, not 1000. Do you actually know anything about illegal drugs?
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1270752.htm

Which compares to around 19,000 deaths from tobbaco
http://www.quit.org.au/article.asp?ContentID=7484

And around 3000 for alcohol.
http://www.alcohol.gov.au/guidelines/pdf/figures_fs.pdf

Why don't you want to kill the pushers of these dangerous drugs? I hope it's not self interest. I'm sure you wouldn't indulge in either of these dangerous drugs redneck, and neither did any of your mates in the army when you were defending Australia from her enemies. No-one in the army drinks, do they?.

For the record, I am not in favour of legalising all illegal drugs. I am aware of the horrible consequences of the use of certain drugs for certain people. If we could successfully prevent anyone from ever taking heroin, then great - but its not really working is it, and I hate to break it to you, but killing a few drug mules isn't going to make it work either. Killing might be what its all about on the battlefield, but it doesn't always work so well on social problems I'm afraid. The best way to prevent harm from all drugs is to educate people so that they don't use them, or if they do, they use them in a way which is less harmful.

And finally, as for my supposed illegal and anti-social behaviour, you make me laugh. I'm so respectable I bore myself, and I contribute my fair share to this country. When I have kids, you can be sure I will be imparting plenty of pro-social values to them, like taking responsibility for their own actions, and that killing people is wrong.

Redneck,
Your point is that you think capital punishment is a good thing for drug dealers. My point is that if you are going to impose a heavy penalty like death, it has to be done after a fair and transparent judicial process in which the defendant has every opportunity to prove his or her innocence. Firstly, if you effectively reverse the burden of proof for defendants facing death or 20 years in prison, you will automatically end up with innocent people convicted. Secondly, Indonesia only imposes heavy penalties on those who have few political or financial resources. Look at Tommy Soeharto. He only got a 15 year sentence for murder and that has now been reduced further. In Australia, the penalty for this would have been much much heavier. Thirdly, your facts are all over the place. Schapelle's brother was not arrested for cannibis cultivation or drug pushing and your post suggests that you would convict/condemn Schapelle on the basis of her brother's supposed involvement in drugs. So much for fair process. I agree we should punish the guilty, but not the innocent along with them.

If I were sentenced to death in Indonesia, with the alternative being 20 or more years being shut up in one of their gaols, I would prefer an early, certain death to a long-drawn out period of living like an already-dead person