Category: Chris Nyst
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

Swings and Roundabouts

It's funny the way things seem to go on swings and roundabouts. In 1945 the troops returned from World War II celebrating victory over fascism and the arbitrary and excessive use of power by the State. By the early 1950s politicians like American Senator Joe McCarthy had fuelled Cold War fears of Communist subversion, and convinced the populace there was “a Red under every bed”. So Americans surrendered their civil rights to avert the Communist threat. But then, a few years later, after a series of reckless, often-unsubstantiated accusations and character assassinations, McCarthy’s public hearings were discredited and shut down. By the early 1960s a new generation was again championing civil rights and libertarianism.
  • Chris Nyst, Commissions of Inquiry, Criminal Law, Litigation, Politics

The Rule Of Law

In a time of increasingly vigorous criticism of some of our court processes, many were taken aback when Victoria’s Supreme Court recently hit back at its detractors, carpeting three politicians, a journalist and a newspaper editor, over public statements criticising the sentencing of terror offenders. A couple of months ago three ministers of the Turnbull government, – Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar – publicly slammed Victorian judges for what they characterised as inappropriate leniency and “ideological experiments” in sentencing terrorists, Mr Sukkar asserting the judges’ approach “has eroded any trust that remained in our legal system.”
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Defamation, Privacy

Reasonable Conduct

The threat last week by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts to report Fairfax Media journalists to police for stalking, raises some interesting questions. Last Thursday the Senator’s senior media adviser, Sean Black, threatened to complain to police about what he called "continued pestering" and "harassment". His claims followed allegedly persistent emails from journalists seeking answers from Senator Roberts about renunciation of his UK citizenship, in the context of the broader dual nationality debate. Mr Black reportedly told Fairfax Media to "stop the harassment" and warned that further “pestering or harassment” would be referred to the Queensland Police Service for prosecution.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Litigation, Technology

Sifting Through The Dross

The Roman Catholic Cardinal George Pell has retained a brilliant USSR-born, Jewish lawyer to defend him.  Melbourne-based barrister Robert Richter QC has been retained to defend the Cardinal on historical sex charges. Having worked often with Robert, I can tell you the Cardinal has an excellent man in his corner. But nonetheless, many experienced lawyers are privately wondering if he can possibly get a fair trial.
  • Chris Nyst, Entertainment, Hollywood, International, Opinion

The Bird Is Coming

I read a news story just the other day about a self-declared “grammar vigilante” who reportedly prowls the streets of Bristol, in south-west England, correcting errant punctuation on business signs. Apparently for the past decade or so he has been venturing out late at night, wearing a coat and black hat, to surreptitiously correct sloppy grammar on many of the city’s billboards. Carrying an eight-foot-long tool he refers to as an “apostophiser,” which allows him to correct punctuation marks on elevated signs, he has rectified scores of signs, including such public abominations as “Potato’s for sale”, “Amy’s Nail’s, and Cambridge Motor’s.”
  • Chris Nyst, Defamation, Dispute Resolution, International

Feud

Some court cases concern life and liberty, some are about money and manipulation, and others grubby politics and power. But in defamation cases everything’s at stake. Our reputation and good name is our most valued asset, because when all is said and done it’s all we have. Youth is transient, beauty skin-deep, and material riches illusory. Our physical strength and allure inevitably wane and fade like yesterday’s flowers, and affluence and influence desert us like a fickle, fatuous friend.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International, Travel

A Foreign Land

The sentencing this week in China of three Australian employees of James Packer’s Crown Resorts brings into sharp focus the scary reality of globalisation.  Melbourne-based executive Jason O’Connor and China based staff members Jerry Xuan and Pan Dan all pleaded guilty last Monday to charges of illegally promoting gambling, and were ordered to serve between 9 and 10 months in a Chinese prison. Additionally, the Shanghai court imposed fines on the three Australians, along with 14 other Chinese Crown Resorts employees, totalling $1.67 million.
  • Chris Nyst, Commissions of Inquiry, Criminal Law, Privacy

Citizen John and the Genie

There’s a common misconception in some circles that only criminals, miscreants and ne’er-do-wells attract the attention of investigators like Federal and State police, corporate and other regulatory watchdogs, the tax man and the like. Most of us blithely go through life believing if we always try to act honestly and honourably there is no risk we will ever be targeted. Unfortunately, it’s just not true.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Opinion, Politics

Parole On Trial

The Prime Minister’s call for an overhaul of state parole laws in the wake of this week's terrorist attack in Melbourne has the sniff of political scapegoating.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion, Politics

Fixated Folk

This week I learned something kind of crazy that I never knew before.A gentleman came to my office complaining that five police officers had recently materialised at his front door, without warning or invitation, wanting to conduct a psychiatric assessment on him. It all sounded more than a little bit bizarre to me but, since the gentleman appeared otherwise quite lucid, I tried to dig a little deeper, in the hope of understanding what it may be all about. He didn't really know. The best he could tell me was the officers concerned were apparently attached to something called the Fixated Persons Unit. 
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion

The Better Part Of Us

The 1959 German film Die Bruecke by director Bernhard Wiki is set in the final days of World War 2, as American tanks drive the Allied victory home on German soil. In a small German village seven young schoolboys declare their fierce determination to defend their country against the American invaders. When they are called to bolster the army’s badly depleted ranks the boys are all elated, but their teacher secretly entreats a company sergeant to spare them from combat, knowing Germany’s defeat is by now inevitable.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Migration, Politics

A Small, Small World

On June 28, 1963, the then-President of the United States of America, the late great John Fitzgerald Kennedy, addressed a joint session of the Oireachtas Eireann, the national parliament of Ireland, in Dublin. He spoke not only as the world’s most powerful political leader of his era, but as the proud descendant of an impoverished Irish emigrant family.