Tag: Criminal Lawyers

In his massively successful, triple-platinum 2018 album "Astroworld," American rapper Travis Scott  got the party started with the high-charged rap anthem, ‘NO BYSTANDERS.’ It was an up-tempo call-to-arms, full of rage and rebellion. As it turns out, it may also have been a little prophetic.
As the proud father, and principal of Nyst Legal, I am extremely chuffed to be able to announce that this week, for the second year in succession, my youngest son, and Nyst Legal Senior Associate, Jonathan Nyst, has been shortlisted as one of the finalists in the Criminal Law division of the national Lawyers Weekly 30 Under 30 Awards.
On 25 February 2021, the Federal Senate passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Media Bargaining Code) Bill 2021, (“the Code”), a controversial new law requiring certain digital platforms to pay a negotiated fee to eligible Australian news media businesses for the use of their digital content. Whilst many have praised the Code for standing up to omnipotent tech companies in the noble pursuit of fair market practices, others, including the tech companies themselves, have accused Australia of trying to break the internet.
The familiar legal adage "Hard cases make bad law" dates back at least as far as the early 1800s. It points to the danger of reacting to an extreme case by making a general, harsh and inflexible law to cover all cases. Wisdom dictates, the adage suggests, that laws are better drafted to target the average - and therefore more common – cases, rather than the extreme ones.
Between 1905 and 1970, generations of First Nations children were forcibly removed from their families, under a policy of so-called ‘protection.’ The 1995 Bringing Them Home report estimated that between ten and thirty-three per cent of all First Nations children were taken from their loved ones.
It's sometimes said that one man's loss is another man's profit, and that's evidently true, even in these strange and troubled times. Just ask all those previously-struggling toilet paper and face mask makers. One curious example has even arisen in the criminal courts.
Robot judges in Estonia? American AI sentencing criminals to prison? Computers predicting crimes before they even happen? One may be forgiven for thinking such concepts come straight from a science fiction novel, or the rabid rantings of an online conspiracy theorist. The truth is they are all part of today’s reality. And it looks like it’s only a matter of time before concepts like predictive policing and artificial intelligence will be an everyday feature of justice systems worldwide. 
Everyone who’s ever punt-kicked a Sherrin has chimed in to have their say on the recent brew-ha-ha between the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers. But the controversy may be set to spread far beyond Aussie rules football.
With the festival season back in full swing, plenty of music lovers are sure to find themselves once more confronted by the canine constabulary. The infamous Police Drug Detection Dog has become such an integral part of the law-enforcement landscape that nowadays no festival frolic is complete without a good going over by some deputy dog. We’re told it’s all a necessary part of policing’s zero-tolerance towards drugs, but lately some commentators have raised serious questions about the efficacy and effectiveness of such undignified intrusion, and whether the deployment of sniffer dogs to allow police to farm out reasonable suspicion to their four-legged friends, can ultimately be justified.
I was contemplating suicide this week. Not personally contemplating the actual deed mind you - in fact, it may be more accurate to say that suicide was contemplating me. You see, our apartment windows face the ocean and the twice-yearly clean by the burly-blokes-with-beards-and-rope is insufficient for my taste in crystal clear views. So it was that I found myself accidentally stuck on a 2 foot wide ledge with no railing, 23 floors high, in a pair of jeans, with no shirt and no phone … and carrying a squeegee mop. A moment before, I had pushed the window that inch too far and, as the lock clicked on the inside with me on the outside, I cursed loudly and creatively. Knowing that my girlfriend was out for at least the next hour, I braced myself hard against the window and settled in for some quiet contemplation.
Nyst Legal is recognised as one of Queensland’s leading criminal and regulatory law firms.Whilst we have been based on the Gold Coast for the past four decades we have always practised extensively in all Brisbane courts, as well as those in other metropolitan and regional centres throughout Queensland and New South Wales. We have now established a presence in the Brisbane CBD at Level 27, Santos Place, 32 Turbot Street, Brisbane, to service and build on our Brisbane-based clientele, particularly in criminal and regulatory matters.
“Cannabis sativa is the greatest wonder-drug ever known to man.” The grizzled, weather-beaten face of the aging hippie who sat across the narrow interview desk from me, in the close, stifling confines of the remand prison interview room, was stretched into a wide-eyed look of wonderment. “The Hindu Vedas sang about its powers in the Atharva Veda 1500 years before the birth of Christ. The Hindus called it ‘the food of the gods.’” I took a reassuring glance in the direction of the panic button on the wall. It was comfortably within my reach.