Fergie's Tech Blog

Australia: Judge Blasts Terrorism Laws

Tim Dick writes in The Sydney Morning Herald:

Significant parts of the Government's terrorism laws may be unconstitutional, the recently retired High Court judge Michael McHugh says.

Mr McHugh believes the ability to detain people who are not suspected criminals is dubious, as are control orders imposed on people who have not been convicted of any offence. He also criticised the prohibition on praising acts of terrorism.

In a paper in this month's Australian Bar Review, Mr McHugh said most of the terrorism laws created since 2001 were not open to serious constitutional challenge, but some important parts of them were.

In his paper, he questioned the power of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to secretly detain people for seven days even if they were not suspected of anything.

posted by Fergie @ 12/17/2006 12:18:00 PM