Tag: criminal
  • Chris Nyst, International, Politics

Taking On The State

Experienced lawyers will tell you, you can’t really call yourself a litigator until you’ve won the unwinnable case, and lost the un-loseable. I’ve had more than my share of hopeless cases, with varying results, but here’s one even I wouldn’t like to take on.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Politics

From Little Things

Last week ‘New York’s Finest’ were reaching for their Smartphones, posting happy snaps of panhandlers begging on Broadway and vagrants urinating in the streets. What the…?!
  • Chris Nyst, Hollywood, Litigation, Opinion, Politics

The Bloody Insult

Not everything's about money. One of my favourite Australian films of all time is Ken Hannan’s classic 1975 drama Sunday Too Far Away. It tells the tale of knock-about shearers working the sheds on an outback sheep station in 1955 Australia. Their tough existence is summed up in the title, paraphrasing what’s known as The Shearers Wife’s Lament – “Friday night too tired, Saturday night too drunk, Sunday too far away.” Jack Thompson plays Foley, a hard-drinking gun shearer who leads his workmates in a strike over their substandard working conditions. When their employer brings in non-union labour in a bid to break the strike, Foley and his mates dig in. It’s a great line, and a great way to end the film.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion

A Very Big Call

I was surprised to read this week former Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's comment that it is unlikely proposed anti-terror laws would see an Australian deported before their appeal is heard. Some years back a client of mine was deported to the UK by ministerial direction pursuant to section 501 of the Immigration Act. He had come to Australia with his family as a child, and was in his 20s when he was convicted of a criminal offence.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights, Opinion

Exactly What They Take

Frank Darabont’s 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption is an enduring classic of American cinema. Based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, it tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a young banker sentenced to life imprisonment in the tough Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and her lover, a crime he says he didn’t commit. That’s tough material for any audience, and when the film was first released it all but tanked at the box office. But eventually moviegoers came to embrace the morality tale at the heart of Andy’s redemption, and the film went on to outstanding critical acclaim, recognised as one of the best films of our time. Most of the most quotable quotes come from Andy’s fellow inmate Ellis “Red” Redding, played with understated dignity by the great Morgan Freeman, whose gentle narration becomes a quiet commentary of Dufresne’s desperate struggle to maintain his self-worth in the face of brutality and hopelessness.