Tag: solicitor
  • Criminal Law, Human Rights, Jonathan Nyst

Is The Best Defence Really A Good Tay-Tay Song?

In this day and age, virtually everyone has high quality audio-visual recording equipment right at their fingertips. Our ever-ready mobile phone can record and disseminate information worldwide with the click of one or two buttons. So it's perhaps no wonder so many get a little bit click-happy nowadays when they find themselves in the presence of the Thin Blue Line.
  • Announcements, Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Jonathan Nyst

Jonathan Nyst Shortlisted For Law Award

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.
  • Privacy

A Matter Of Privilege

Confidential communications between lawyers and their clients are sacrosanct. They are subject to legal professional privilege, which means they cannot be disclosed by anyone – including the lawyer – to anyone else - including the government, the courts, the police, or anyone at all - without the client’s express authorisation. That principle has been around for about 500 years, and remains a fundamental tenant of our legal system. But it has, at times, been sorely tested.
  • Human Rights, Jonathan Nyst, Politics

A Very Good Start

The late great Nelson Mandela served 27 years in prison for his opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation in South Africa. When he was finally released from custody in 1990, he famously said "To deny a person their human rights is to challenge their very humanity."
  • Criminal Law, Entertainment, Jonathan Nyst, Sport

Racy Behaviour

This weekend’s Castrol Gold Coast 600 is yet another reminder that some people just seem to be a whole lot happier when someone gets their gear off.
  • Criminal Law

Send In The Clowns

The circus is in town.  A crazy new phenomenon is sweeping across the US, Europe, and now even Australia. It trumps the Trump, it’s scarier than Ruddy’s run at the UN, and it’s so weird it even out-weirds planking, if that’s actually possible. Scary killer clowns have taken to lurking on our streets, hiding in the shadows and around corners, waiting to maniacally leap out and scare the living socks off us.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Hollywood, Opinion

Stool Pigeons & G Men

G men love stoolies. It’s a fact of life. Over the centuries, the one thing that has most frustrated the work of ‘government guys’ – the regulators of all shapes and sizes, the G men, the Jacks, the fuzz, the heat, the traps, the Johnny Hoppers, federalies, wallopers, flatfoots, boys in blue, whatever you want to call them – the one thing that has most frustrated their valiant efforts to rein in the miscreant criminal milieu has been the unshakeable conspiracy of silence that has long existed between partners in crime.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Sport

NRL Match Fixing Investigation

Today’s news that six NRL stars will be interrogated over alleged match fixing, and face jail if they refuse to co-operate with investigators, brings into sharp focus a recurring issue for professional sports people. Having endured the debacle that was the recent ASADA doping investigation into the AFL and NRL, and more recently still match fixing allegations in the sport of basketball and the greyhound industry live baiting scandal, it is very clear to me that few sports administrators, and virtually no sports men and women, have any real appreciation of the concept and purpose of the right to silence, and the interplay between contractual and legislative obligation as it affects statements against interest.
  • Compliance Law, Privacy

The Do’s And Don’ts Of Telemarketing

In Australia we have some of the strictest telemarketing laws in the world and we need to. I’m sure everyone who reads this blog has received a telemarketing call at some stage or another from someone in India, the Philippines or even South Africa.
  • Chris Nyst, Opinion, Property

Boom Town

When I was a kid my brothers and I used to watch those corny old black-and-white midday matinee movies on TV, and one of my favourites was an action adventure called “Boom Town”. It starred Clark Gable and Spencer Tracey as “Big John” Masters and “Square John” Sands, a couple of handsome wildcatters chancing their luck on the California oil fields. Together they carve out an empire in a rollicking western town where the saloons are overflowing with cowboys and dancing girls, and everyone is prospecting for something.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, Human Rights

A Matter Of Restraint

Today’s news out of the Broncos Rugby League headquarters about an alleged “drunken incident” involving star centre James Roberts has let more than a few old spectres out of the closet. Newspapers today reported that an allegation Roberts verbally abused a barmaid in a drunken rage at the Normanby Hotel has been referred to the NRL’s integrity unit, which reportedly imposed a 12 month alcohol ban on Roberts in 2014 following his sacking at Penrith.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law

Can Police Just Randomly Stop and Search Me?

At festivals like Splendour in the Grass and Greazefest, music lovers have become accustomed to seeing police routinely searching people suspected of having drugs in their possession. In certain circumstances police are entitled to do that, but it’s not just open season. Police are not entitled to just randomly stop and search people for no good reason. Unless a police officer has an actual search warrant, then they’re not entitled to detain and search a person except where they suspect on reasonable grounds that person has drugs in their possession.