What a load of cods wallop. If this were the case why has the British, Spanish, and French Governments all refused to allow their citizens to be tried in Guantanamo Bay? Even the Americans have removed their citizens from Guantanamo Bay and ensured they face a fair trial at home. The situation is a disgrace and David Hicks should be brought home.

There will be a rally in Canberra to Coincide with the opening of Parliament on Tuesday 6 February 2007 at 11 am.

Check out:

Fair GO for David Hicks:
http://www.fairgofordavid.org/htmlfiles/main.htm

And:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/BillboardsForJustice.asp?campaign_id=63

As long as the most well respected jurists and legal academics in the country and the like of Geoffrey Robertson are of the veiw that the detention of David Hicks is unlawful - putting to one side the outrageous treatment he has received - I tend to go along with them - he needs to be freed - even if we have no capacity to try him here

I see that David Flint is employing his usual 'economic with the truth' style in this article. After all, why let facts get in the way of dishonest opinion. Can he please explain under which "Laws of War" the US is allowed to keep David Hicks? Can he perhaps predict a date for the "end of hostilities" in this 'war on terror'? Sometimes I get the feeling that he writes these articles simply to get a rise out of others, such as myself. Having seen him on TV, have noted his tendency to use hyperbole, and ad hominem attacks, in his arguments to distract attention from the innacuracy of his statements. All done, of course, in his unfailingly polite manner.

David Flint demonstrates here he is as gullible now as he has ever been in public life.

For the USA, the issue is what it can get away with by bluster and the smoke-and-mirrors exercise that is the Military Commission model.

When it *cannot* get away with applying sub-standard conditions to trials, it applies (apparently with no particular difficulty) the same criminal trial system as applies to any other crime. It did so in respect of USA citizens in the same conflict in which Hicks was caught up. Only days ago it promised (in return for agreement to extradite) that it would prosecute a Danish individual in its civilian courts and not by Military Commission. It got its man and has delivered on this promise. None of the British, Spanish or USA allow citizens to be subject to Military Commissions, yet Flint thinks its good enough for Australians.

Flint says there is no standard as to what should be admissible. He is wrong. The standard is the rules applicable to Courts Martial, which are applied to USA soldiers accused of crimes. That is the standard applied in the situation of armed conflict. It is a standard that is entirely capable of accounting for security concerns without affecting ongoing war-fighting capability.

Flint says hearsay and coerced evidence is fine because it could be considered by a Royal Commission or coronial inquest here. Neither creature has the function of imposing criminal sanction - that is reserved to criminal courts applying fair criminal procedures.

Flint suggests that the average Australian might be less inclined to object if it were widely reported that consular assistance has been provided to Hicks. He is far out of touch with any average Australian. What the average Australian sees is a system which is not good enough for the Brits, USA etc., but is deemed to be good enough for Australians. The application of consular assistance is simply the salve the Australian government is applying to its conscience. It certainly does Hicks no good.

Hello David and correspondents.

The Federal Government's line - that we have no capacity to try Hicks in Australia - is false.

Ruddock has said that we have no power to make retrospectively operating criminal law. That is wrong. There is ample authority for the proposition that the Commonwealth Parliament has constitutional power to make criminal laws with retrospective operation. David, please consult your constitutional law texts, and read Polyhukovich v Commonwealth (1991) 172 CLR 501.

This "no power to make retrsospective law" reason is not the real reason why Hicks has not been returned to Australia. The real reason is that John Howard has ceded Australian foreign policy judgment to the Bush Administration. That explains why the Howard Government has been so muted in their criticism of the US for being so slow to bring Hicks to "trial" (incidentally folks, it won't be a trial aything like a genuine criminal trial, so don't get too excited about the prospect of due process being afforded to Hicks or any of the other detainees at Guantanamo...) Our Government does not want to offend the Americans.

What a disgraceful, craven response to a blatant violation of human rights.

Human rights are owed to everyone - even terrorism suspects - because of our common humanity. Australia's complicity in the Guantanamo Bay gulag should be a matter of national shame.

Anyone who supports that gulag and the policies informing it should likewise be ashamed

David Flint is right to make the point that Hicks should not be considered in the same light as some one who has been involved in civil criminality. Maybe one day those who disingenuously dismiss the reality of the threat we all face from the Jihadists by the clever use of semantics and statistics will realise that it is a war we are involved with here. I only hope that it does not take an atrocity on our soil to convince them.

Hicks, is lucky not to have been summarily shot and his detention for the duration of hostilities is entirely consistent with any civilized understanding of our conventions on the prosecution of war.