BOAZ,

So what you're saying is that we should accept everything the government tells us without question? Yeah cos thats a great way to ensure the government is accountable.

For the record I think both sides of politics have been woeful on this. The government screwed up in a major way and the opposition followed like sheep.

Yes I'm going to run for the Senate, so there is always going to be questions about my motives, I accept that, it comes with the territory. However I can be sure in myself that my criticism of the government does not come from some attempt to win votes, but from a deeply held belief that you don't throw out the baby with the bath water. In this case the baby being the core values of our justice system, the Presumption of Innocence and Due Process.

If your view of the world is that the justice system should be any other way then I'm sorry I reject that outright.

However, Boazy is to be commended for almost posting an entire comment without a biblical reference.

In which State are you running James, if you don't mind me asking?

Haneef should just be thankful the federal government don't apparently have a stomach breaches of legit people of residence's civil liberties (or public opinion on it)...unlike the yanks. Dr Haneef is going to be a major thorn in the side of Howard for a long time to come...well, months anyway.

Well they've released the transcript of the second interview and initial opinion is there is nothing in it that could put in danger any ongoing investigation. Things are not looking up for Andrews.

CJ, I'm going to be running in New South Wales

The judge has made a decision on a fairly technical point. Mr Russo did not sound very happy about that. If Mr Andrews had been given slightly different advice by the Solicitor-General's office then there would have been no question about the decision about revoking his visa.

James,

You cite "the core values of our justice system, the Presumption of Innocence and Due Process" and like others seem to think these notions are sacred cows.

Even acknowledging the central role they play, they are and have always been balanced against the practicalities of having a working system. They are not absolutes - if they were then bail would be an automatic right. It is not.

Unfortunately, in terrorism cases, not all the intelligence information may be available to the court, and more unfortunately, courts aren't always permitted the discretion to look at the big picture. This recent debacle was over a court's ruling that the minister had applied the wrong test. The court, unlike the minister, was almost certainly solely concerned with the minister's authority to make his decision on the grounds he did but NOT the threat this man may poses to the Australian community. For that reason alone it is stupid to form a view of the minister's motives based on the decision of the court.

Now given the earlier 'fudgy' evidence on sim cards and other circumstantial 'evidence' there is good reason to question the credibility of the case against Haneef, but I doubt the minister would be prolonging the embarassment of this debacle unless he really was concerned.

If members of our executive government identify a serious threat to Australia, I would rather they do whatever they have to to protect us from that threat, rather than stand aside in compliance with the niceties of due process which the court's police.

A hypothetical: if the CIA and British intelligence services advised ASIO they had information that Mr X was going to remotely detonate a bomb (let's say a weapon of mass destruction just to be dramatic) in a major Australian city sometime soon. Do you really want our government to take no action against Mr X, just because we had no detailed evidence which could be used in court?

Seriously?