RoLIA CEO, Kate Burns, wrote in the Australian today about the Queensland Government’s anti-bikie legislation and the worrying trend in criminal law to sacrifice fundamental rule of law principles in the name of “political toughness”.
From a rule-of-law standpoint there seems to be a lot of bluster by governments portraying themselves as crime fighters, frustrated by occasional n’er-do-wells and their lawyers complaining to the High Court that underlying common law rights have been wrongly denied them.
But behind the scenes, vulnerable people, who don’t have the resources to challenge, are paying the price for the executive’s increasingly unchecked powers.
See also RoLIA’s recent mash-up of good reads on mandatory sentencing across Australia, Dr Binoy Kampmark’s blog from last year about the temptations of demagoguery in Queensland, and Kate’s piece on the changes to the right to silence in NSW.
I don’t know where you get your information from but these men were not held in a special facility and they did not wear pink jumpsuits. Please try to at least get the facts correct before offering your opinions.
Hi Goldie,
Thanks for your comment.
We assume the three men sentenced by Justice Applegarth for contempt were held in a Queensland Corrective Services facility subject to the “Restricted Management Regime” for Criminal Motorcycle Gang (CMG) prisoners set out in Paragraph 27 of the judgment (link to judgment of John David Callanan v Attendee Z [2013] QSC 324, see para. 27 on page 8).
The judgment cites Queensland Corrective Services policy documents which state that sentenced CMG prisoners were ‘to be placed in the Restricted Management Unit at Woodford Correctional Centre, unless there were compelling reasons otherwise’. The policy goes on to state that:
RoLIA is not privy to the decisions of Queensland Corrective Services in enforcing the policy mentioned above. We rely on the judgment of Justice Applegarth at Paragraph 32 of the judgment cited above which states that “the respondent is highly likely to be subject to the policy I have described and will be imprisoned in the manner that I have mentioned.”
Regards
Nick
That’s not a ‘special facility’ and where did you get the information that the uniform is pink coveralls?
Please refer to our previous comment as it addresses both your questions. If you have some specific information on this case you would like to share, please let us know.
I’m interested to know where you got the information from that the uniform is pink jumpsuits. You have not addressed that.
Hi Goldie
Thank you for your continuing interest in this area. If you have any further information beyond the statements made by the Premier and Police Minister on this issue we would interesting in receiving it.
UPDATE: See this article in the Sunshine Coast Daily (link) which cites prisoners as wearing ‘bubblegum pink uniforms’.
The article was written before the Sunshine Coast Daily report and you quote that as your definitive source. You need to do a lot better than that because I do not believe it is true. How about you check with the authorities and maybe do better research before you write any future garbage.
Hi Goldie
As discussed our comment is based on the policy of QCS cited in Justice Applegarth’s reasons and the stated policy of the Queensland Premier and Police Minister. The Sunshine Daily article corroborates this.