Mylakhrion, cont.

Yes, I'm the only one talking about Assad, the only one who has mentioned the other 45 odd Australians who are imprisoned in foreign countries around the world and being subjected to foreign courts and justice system. What exactly sets the Hicks case above these? Other than the left is using it to make all kinds of credibility attacks against the Howard government. Even Thomson uses the Hicks case to advance the Labour Party as the “moral party”.

I find it very hard to blast the Americans for holding Hicks as a suspected terrorist, while in Australia we are holding a migrant under Australian law and abusing him and torturing him and denying him medical care and basically getting up to the same behavior. Is Assad a terrorist? Has he had a trial? What's the evidence against him?

As for what the MCA hasn't done. There has been no trial as yet. They have laid charges and from what the Lawyers have said. Hicks ought to be home in short order and what ever steps Australia takes once that happens is of no concern to the U.S. or the Military Tribunal. Essentially saying Australia can free Hicks if that's it's decision.

As I said in an earlier post. I see the total exercise of Gitmo and the Military Tribunal as an American process towards justice. Others went before Hicks and others will follow (400), and eventually the Americans will have their process in place and the next government will have a model to use as a starting point. Where it goes from there is up to the next government. Just as it is here in Australia. Terrorism isn't going to end with the Hicks case or the Howard government.

Kelvin Thomson talks about our proud history going back 800 years in the establishment of our justice system. He excludes mentioning the history of inhumane treatment of prisoners, torture, and their being used as slave labour, as part of the process towards creating a truly just system of laws and behavior and that that process is still in effect

Aqvarivs

Again: this debate (until now) has not been about Australia's immigration detention policy. It is about the American handling of a legal case.

Two different things. My own 2-cents worth is that, yeah- you are right. The Government's handling of the detention center policy is often cruel and inhumane. Does that somehow give America a free ride on Hicks and the others? Is America entitled to abuse others because we do?

I still fail to see the relevance of your point to the debate here.

Yes- the US have laid charges. They are convening a court. However, as far as I can see they are still retroactive charges in an essentially unfair court.

Did you have a look at the link I included earlier? Did you read the rules of the MCA? If so, do you have a comment on them? Courts ain't courts! (to abuse the old Castrol ad) and even though no trial has taken place, the rules of the game can be used to judge it's fairness.

Kelvin's quotes are very appropriate to this point. So are your comments. The long history of Western legal tradition has often lapsed in areas like slavery, torture and the like. I'd like to think that we have learned from these mistakes, that the accumulation of legal precedence shows us where we have failed in previous time. In short, that we are getting better.

In getting better, we have seen where we went wrong. Things like speedy trials, tight control on the types of evidence introduced, the ability to appeal a trial that was conducted unfairly have all been added to the requirements of a fair court because when they don't exist, injustices occur.

The MCA was introduced specifically to eliminate many of these guarantees. That is why I believe these courts are unfair. If America was interested in justice, then they should be using the very best in legal jurisprudence. Instead they are using Military Commissions that are judge, jury and (potentially) executioner.

Do you think this is fair? This is the question I'd like you to answer

aqvarivs

Again you open your mouth to change feet, the treatment of Sharif Assad is obnoxious. To tie an epileptic to a bed is wrong. But who is allowing this to happen? The same Australian Government that allows Hicks to be locked up for 5 years without trial. Who is complaining about his treatment? The left (as you would call them).

Sure your going to say Labor instigated mandatory detention, but our Right wing Govt. is the one who has abused the system.

Hicks and Assad are symptoms of the same disease, political expediency from our dishonest Prime Minister. Remember it was a member of his own party that called him a lying rodent.

This debate isn't about Hicks, it isn't about our detention policy and it isn't as you are trying to direct, about the MCA. IT'S ABOUT JUSTICE. What part of JUSTICE allows you to seek specific entitlements for Hicks alone? I should focus on American judicial experience in relationship to terrorism but, ignore Australia's efforts to develop a legal process for dealing with terrorism. I should focus on Hicks but, shy away from Assad because they are being tortured by different institutions? You have varying degrees and definitions of the rule of law and justice depending on the institution under review? We hold the Americans to a higher standard while excusing our own behavior, and then blame them for our behavior because of what? Hubris? They made us do it?

The courts system and the development of law(s) has always been a two steps forward, one step back reality. Especially when the laws and charges don't match the circumstances. And I believe that there is no law yet that matches the circumstances of global terrorism and international policing of terrorist actions across nations. I have chosen to adopt a wider view on the subject of bringing terrorist under the arm of the law. I don't know what the end result will be but, I do hope that terrorism and terrorist are not given over to civil criminal law. If not a Military tribunal then at a minimum tried in the Hague or World Court for war crimes.

If Hicks or any other accused terrorist is tried under civil law than other Nations will demand the same standard. We can not say Hicks is a civil matter and then pursue war crimes in Darfur. I'm concerned with the outcome of this subject for it's global ramifications and not for Hicks specifically.

Steve Madden how simplistic. Barracking for the left by blaming Howard for the acts of a few individuals who exceeded the laws established by the left who were in power before Howard. How do you know they didn't support Labour. And exceeded their powers by divine right of being party supporters?

aqvarivs

With each post you dig a deeper hole, terrorism is nothing new, we do not need new laws to deal with it. As a descendant of a member of Óglaigh Na Herein I can debate this issue with you forever.

If you are sucked in by the politics of fear, your problem. We have laws, equally applied to everyone. Or else we have tyranny, your choice is that governments can do whatever they like, mine is different.

Steve Madden,
The attempted appropriation of this noble and historic title is an insult to the memory of those who, like General Michael Collins, strove for Irish freedom and to those who have stood ready to serve and defend this country since independence.
This distortion and perversion extends to the abuse of language and phrases, particularly the corruption of the name: Óglaigh na hÉireann.

There is only one Óglaigh na hÉireann – it is the Irish Defence Forces.

The words “Óglaigh na hÉireann” appear proudly on the cap badge of every member of the Defence Forces, just as they appeared on the cap badges of their forebears in the Irish Volunteers.
THE MINISTER FOR DEFENCE, MR. WILLIE O’DEA - 22 February 2005.
COLLINS BARRACKS, CORK

Your an intellectual fraud Sir. Claiming to be a descendant of a member of The Irish Defence Forces or it's earlier namesake The Irish Volunteers or misrepresenting the “Irish Troubles” by implication does not give you a right or a superior platform from which to discuss anything. That you would even hint at a relationship between David Hicks predicament, todays terrorism perpetrated by religious gangs in the name of Allah -with the struggles of a tiny nations attempt to overcome the institutionalized feudal oppression of a larger more powerful nation is beyond any standard of reason or reasonableness, and abuses an entire people, culture, nation- and just so you can think you've come off as intellectually superior. Your unconscionable. You'll stoop to anything to get your pounce in, rather than participating with a genuine opinion on subject.