Tag: nyst legal

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.
We all like to be kept in the manner to which we are accustomed. Under the Family Law Act 1975, when a married couple breaks up, each is expected to maintain his or her former spouse to the extent they are reasonably able, if their former spouse is unable to support themselves adequately. It’s called spousal maintenance.
The sad reality of the uncertain times in which we live is that any major public event will inevitably carry an increased security threat, and a corresponding call for heightened security protocols and broader police powers. In the case of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, the Queensland Parliament has answered that call by arming police with extraordinary and quite intrusive powers to stop, detain and search people and vehicles without warrant or even reasonable suspicion, use sniffer dogs, metal detectors, Backscatter x-ray vans and other investigative technologies, and randomly enter and search private property at will.
They say the truth will set you free. But when it comes to defamation, I wouldn't count on it. The recent rush of "Me Too" revelations has set up what promises to be some very interesting defamation litigation in the not too distant future.
Way back in 1968, Andrew Warhola, better known as the iconic American artist, director and film producer Andy Warhol, the celebrated pinup boy of the uber-cool 1960s visual art movement known as Pop Art, made what was to prove a profoundly prophetic statement. "In the future," Warhol proclaimed, "Everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."
This week I learned some stuff about intoxicated people. Given the popular national penchant for a cold beer on a hot day, perhaps it’s unsurprising that it happened on a trip to the sweltering tropics. The whole saga started more than a year ago when the Liquor and Gaming regulators decided to raid a Far North Queensland pub to make sure everyone up there was conducting themselves with all appropriate decorum and discretion. As it turned out, they concluded to their shock and horror that they weren’t.
When I first started doing trial work as a young lawyer I was constantly surprised and intrigued by the persistent inconsistency between different eyewitness accounts of the exact same incident. Particularly when dealing with a violent or otherwise shocking event, such as a car crash or a brutal street brawl, no two witnesses seemed to remember the same event in the same way. For a defence lawyer it was the welcome stuff of reasonable doubt, but I soon learned it was also just a fact of life. When people are confronted by emergent and traumatic circumstances, their brains can only take in so much detail, and the fact two witnesses remember one event in completely different ways doesn't necessarily mean either one is telling fibs. Quite the contrary.
“I am the result of a loving upbringing in a peaceful country, with wonderful parents and siblings, a very long-term relationship, stability, support – but a feeling that life isn't always just and that there is injustice for people and we should do something about it.”
By all accounts the recently deceased was a pretty cranky old dude. Even his life-long best friend, my client, the sole beneficiary and executor of the old guy’s last will and testament, had to acknowledge that fact. But then, even by his own admission, they both were. They were cut from the same cloth, no-nonsense old-school Aussie battlers, raised on Struggle Street. Hard men of a by-gone era with little time for tears or new age sensibilities, who had grown into lonely, curmudgeonly old codgers. But they were two grumpy old men who happily endured each other’s inhospitable habits. So it’s probably unsurprising that, years earlier, when the old guy’s family had finally had enough of his gruff, uncompromising ways, he was left only with his old mate from the old days for solace and support. It was a two-way street. Neither had made much time for friendships or relationships; they were too busy just getting on with life.
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.
In the early hours of the morning following Australia Day last year, 26 year old Patrick Slater was found dead in a Perth railway station, a 25cm chest wound had penetrated his aorta and both lungs. Last week, in the WA Supreme Court, five young adults and one teenager were found guilty of his murder. But not all those allegedly involved in the incident actually went on trial. The youngest – just 11 years of age at the time – remains in legal limbo, awaiting his fate. At that tender age, he achieves the unenviable record of being the youngest person ever to be charged with murder in Australia.
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.”