Category: International
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International, Opinion, Politics

A Crisis Of Credibility

Sadly, there is a growing sense of inevitability surrounding impending execution of Bali Nine members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. The political rhetoric continues, but most Australians sense the Indonesians just aren't listening.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion

Vive l’humanité

As distressing as last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris proved to be, they were not the first, and certainly not the worst, acts of terrorism the French people have endured in living memory. During the German occupation of France in the early 1940s, Christian soldiers scoured the streets and homes of France arresting, gaoling, and murdering thousands of Jewish citizens. In that terrible time, the French people demonstrated their capacity to endure and overcome racism, terrorism, and inhumanity.
  • Brendan Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, International, Opinion

Open Justice – Racial Inequality, Video Evidence And Probable Cause

Questions about racial inequality continue to simmer in the United States following last week's decision of a Staten Island Grand Jury not to indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo to stand trial for the killing of Eric Garner earlier this year. It's a decision which has even some of the country’s most staunchly conservative commentators, such as Fox News traditionalist Bill O’Reilly, scratching their heads in disbelief. Protesters in New York have taken up from where the citizens of Ferguson left off. But unlike the unsavoury shooting of Michael Brown in Missouri, which was shrouded in conflicting versions of events, the video evidence of Garner's death was there for all to see. The deceased's non-threatening behaviour was visible, his cries for help audible, and the excess use of force by the Officers, irrefutable. Upon examining the deceased's body, the coroner labelled Eric Garner's death a homicide, having regard to the fact that he died as a result of a violent attack.  The video clearly shows the officer applying a rear chokehold, a manoeuvre banned by the NYPD in 1993. The evidence was damning.  Or so we thought. On 3 December 2014, a Staten Island Grand Jury declined to indict the officer.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Politics

Lest We Forget

Today marks the 96th anniversary of the end of  World War I. In four short years that conflict resulted in an estimated 40 million casualties, including over 200,000 young Australian soldiers killed or wounded in action. In the Battle of the Somme, the first day’s hostilities alone saw over 57,000 British casualties, and the overall body count eventually rose to over a million soldiers killed or wounded.  A little over a year earlier another 340,000 men had fallen on the Gallipoli peninsula. It was hailed as the “war to end all wars.” Unfortunately, things didn't quite turn out that way.
  • Chris Nyst, Human Rights, International, Opinion, Privacy

Carly Nyst Addresses UN Human Rights Council

On Friday last week my dear daughter Carly Nyst, a UK-based Australian lawyer who is currently the Legal Director of the human rights group Privacy International in London, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on the right to privacy in the digital age. As part of a panel which included Flavia Panasieri , the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Catalino Botero Marino, Carly told the Commission that the right to privacy is a fundamental part of human dignity, which guarantees the protection of other human rights such as the freedom of expression, and should be jealously defended by the United Nations, particularly in the wake of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden Affair. The Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms Botero said the Commission recognised that systematic collection of data by governments directly affects the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and appropriate safeguards and controls must be elaborated to prevent those negative effects on human rights.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International

No Surprise In Pistorius Verdict

Notwithstanding all the hoopla being currently kicked up in the public press, I expect the  verdict hardly raised a single eyebrow amongst experienced criminal lawyers anywhere around the globe. On Friday Judge Thokozile Masipa found the celebrated South African Paralympian not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. Neither finding would likely be considered in any way surprising or remarkable to anyone with a close understanding of the British legal system.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International

When Are Young Cops Going To Be Taught Choker Holds Are Lethal?

About 20 years ago I acted for a young police officer who was charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm after he applied a particularly vigorous choker hold in arresting a recalcitrant drink driver. Following his police training to the letter, my client locked his arm around the man's neck and pulled it tight enough to restrict the offender’s blood flow to his brain, causing temporary loss of consciousness, a very effective way of incapacitating anybody. Unfortunately, he also managed to pop one of the man's eyes out of its socket, and cause further unintended but significant damage.