Injustice

[krazykitkat]

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce questioned the trial process.

"The only thing that is guilty here is the judicial process under which he was being tried," he said.

Barnaby is totally correct.

And Downer just doesn't get it:

"First of all there was the view that Hicks clearly couldn't have done anything wrong, and we hate the Americans and all of that," he said.

"There were people who thought David Hicks should just be strung up, he was obviously a horror.

"And there were people in the middle, which is where I was, really. My view was always that the legal process had just taken far too long."

Boy he likes to simplify things into terms he can comprehend. I think there's only a few people where he is, the rest of us (who he throws in the first camp) with more than half a brain and reasoning ability realise that his guilt or innocence became irrelevant a long time ago. The system is a joke and was never more than a kangaroo court.

And Downer et al actually blamed the length of time on Hicks' legal team. If they hadn't been battling for his pesky rights the trial would've been over a long time ago.

The dismissal of Hicks' civilian lawyers is a case in point of the total lack of anything approaching justice:

The judge also decided that Hicks’s civilian lawyer, New York criminal attorney Joshua Dratel could not represent Hicks because he had not signed a form demanded by the court saying he would conform to the regulations governing proceedings.

Mr Dratel protested strongly, saying he could not sign the form because the regulations governing the conduct of attorneys had not yet been formulated by the Secretary of Defence. He was not going to sign a blank cheque for his ethical obligations.


I think anyone, whatever their innocence or guilt, would probably take a plea bargain at this point. The result was predestined, and unless habeas corpus iss reinstated the challenges against the system probably aren't going to go anywhere. Though if it is reinstated (which apparently the Dems have been talking about), and then the military commission was ruled illegal, would that mean his guilty plea would be dismissed? If the restrospective charges were found to be unconstitutional, could his plea be overturned?

Comments

[littlemissscifi.livejournal.com]

I saw Dratel being interviewed on the 730 Report tonight. The whole thing is a disgrace. But then again I wouldn't expect anything less from the Americans.

I hope David will get to come home.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

But then again I wouldn't expect anything less from the Americans.

I'm both insulted by that, and really, really depressed. Because as insulted as I am, I know it's not really wrong.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

I lay the fault at the feet of Bush et al and the Pentagon. The longer it's gone on, the less the chance of any fairness. The system was set up to get guilty verdicts, because not guilty verdicts would be an admission of failure/wrongness on the part of the US administration.

And I blame the Australian government for leaving Hicks to the mercy of a kangaroo court and not having the guts of the British government who said, no this isn't right and we're not letting our citizens go through it.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Generally, under the regular court system, if a higher court overturns a verdict on a procedural issue (which is what this would be) the case is returned to the lower court to be retried (presumably, properly).

The problem is that this is military court, not the court us Joe Schmoe civilians fall under, so I really have no idea how the appeals process would work; I'd have to check. The military court system is entirely separate from civilian jurisdictions, and my work, obviously, deals solely with civilian court.

I could go on a long rant about why the Nuremberg model would be better for this circumstance but I've only had one cup of coffee today.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

Anything would be better than what they got.

The military commission was declared illegal once, this was the second go at it. If it's declared illegal, surely it would mean that any charges/pleas made under it would be dismissed (the charges from the first commission were all dismissed and weren't reinstated under the second commission).

Is the David Hicks trial getting much coverage in the US?

[deslea.livejournal.com]

Well said.

I say this not to blame the victim, but simply to express a reality: People like Hicks - and to a lesser extent Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine - need to understand that while their situation feels understandably like a justice situation, it is really a political one. They need to respond politically, which they probably would not need to do at home.

I think Hicks and his team have realised that.

Although I do think there is some limited sense in which Hicks has some guilt, the only "truth" that we can draw from the plea bargain is that the guy was a pawn in a world game and he needed to get out of it.

[krazykitkat.livejournal.com]

It's definitely political.

I think he has some guilt too, but this wasn't the way to prove it. I really feel like punching Howard out. He just doesn't get it. Apparently we're all deluded and think Hicks is some golden haired boy.