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Watching Brief: Reflections on Human Rights, Law and Justice
Illustrating the importance of protecting human rights and maintaining the rule of law, this reference is a sensitive and intelligent defense of asylum seekers and refugees’ privileges. Clearly explaining the foundations of many of the key tenets of civil society, this resource reviews some of the world’s most famous trials whose outcomes have turned on prejudice, complacency, chance, or the tenacity and skill of advocates. Powerful and timely, this meditation on ethics also analyzes the impact of significant recent cases on contemporary Australian life, determining what ultimately constitutes a decent human society.
- GenresLawNonfictionAustralia
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 2, 2010
I don't know much about law, and until quite recently I tended to make some rather unfair broad sweeping generalisations about it. Namely that it was incredibly boring, stuffy, anachronistic, prevented from being truly useful by infinite layers of tradition and bureaucracy.
However, Melbourne University has recently introduced a post-graduate law course, and so suddenly I was meeting all these incredibly cool and awesome people who were doing it - the type of people who really just want to learn, who have a passion for human rights, or for women's rights, or for environmental protection, people who are going into law not because of the money or the status, but because they really want to use it to do good. These people as well as all my friends who are doing undergraduate law (though the undergraduate friends are generally doing it for the money or the status grrrr) keep insisting and insisting that law is fun and interesting until even my stubborn brain had to start believing it was possible.
And this book was the clincher. Julian Burnside (who is one of the people I admire most in the world) is a lawyer, and one who clearly has a large amount of faith in the capacity of the legal system to be fair and just and to act as a counter-weight to the power of politicians.
conditions in Woomera:
- 2 working toilets for 700 people, leaking, sand on floor to 'mop up' leaking effluent
- 4 working showers for 700 people, hot water only available after midnight
- inmates not allowed to take food from dining room for children or sick adults
no coffee/tea/food between meals, only water
no air conditioning, fly screens, heating - temps range from below 0 to 45, millions of flies
have to queue for meals, medical attention, phones (2/1300 people), for up to 2 hours. Persons seeking medical attention (incl. painkillers for broken leg, raging fever, tonsillitis, etc.) each have to queue in the open for up to 1.5 hours to obrtain medications in front of nurse
nails may only be cut by nurse, who will do one person per day
women must queue ezach day for their ration of tampons/disposable nappies
no baby food or formula - one women struggling to maintain breast feeding for her 6-month old was advised to feed powdered chicken stock in water (no sterilised equipment)
food beyond description - many will not eat it
Fair go as a basic quality of Australians?
People who have a 'voice' are usually those who have the material and intellecual capacity needed for the task - usually those who are from the part of society whose fundamental rights are rarely threatened
"If I ever go back home, I will be in immediate danger of being killed. I also have to say that staying in this camp is worse than being dead!!! I really wish I was dead! There is no law or rule here!! Tehy are so many different type of people and no body respect anybody." letter from an inmate
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty--power is ever stealing from the many to the few...The hand entrusted with power becomes... the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity." Wendell Phillips, 1852 Boston
'Anti-terrorism' legislation in Aus: National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act (NSI)
2002: incommunicado detention for 1 week of people not suspected of any wrong-doing (e.g. thought to have information about others who may have been involved in terrorist offences)
- may be taken into isolated custody
- not ahvea free choice of legal help
not permitted to tell friends or familyw here they are
must answer questions or face 5 years imprisonment
when released, not permitted to tell anyone where they were or what happened to them on pain of imprisonment
2005:person being jailed for up to 14 days in circumstances where thye have not been charged with/convicted of any offense
order obtained in absense of subject
authorises taking of person into custody
not told evidence on which order obtained
given copy of order and 'summary' of the grounds on which the order was made
summary need nopt include any information that is likely to prejudice national security
federal police can issue control order: can include house arrest for up to 12 montsh w/o access to phone or internet
'war on terrorism' - metaphorical, so can extend indefinitely
e.g. Hicks as enemy combatant, despite being cit. of Aus (therefore ally), and fighting with Taliban - lawful govt. of Afghanistan BEFORE US had declared war on it
'A thing, once seen, cannot be unseen; and when you have seen a great moral crime, to remain silent is as much a political act as to speak against it.' Arundhati Roy
"It might shock the fine sensibilities of the state's counsel that this boy was put into a culvert and left after he was dead, but, your Honor, I can think of a scene that makes this pale into insignificance. I can think... of taking two boys, one 18 and the other 19, irresponsible, weak, diseased, penning them in a cell, checking off the days and the hours and the minutes, until they will be taken out and hanged... I can picture them, wakened in the grey light of morning, furnished a suit of clothes by the state, led to the scaffold, their feet tied, black caps drawn over their heads, swtood on a trap door, the hangman pressing a spring, so that it gives way under them; I can see them fall through space--and--stopped by the rope around their necks." Darrow, Leopold and Loeb case
However, Melbourne University has recently introduced a post-graduate law course, and so suddenly I was meeting all these incredibly cool and awesome people who were doing it - the type of people who really just want to learn, who have a passion for human rights, or for women's rights, or for environmental protection, people who are going into law not because of the money or the status, but because they really want to use it to do good. These people as well as all my friends who are doing undergraduate law (though the undergraduate friends are generally doing it for the money or the status grrrr) keep insisting and insisting that law is fun and interesting until even my stubborn brain had to start believing it was possible.
And this book was the clincher. Julian Burnside (who is one of the people I admire most in the world) is a lawyer, and one who clearly has a large amount of faith in the capacity of the legal system to be fair and just and to act as a counter-weight to the power of politicians.
conditions in Woomera:
- 2 working toilets for 700 people, leaking, sand on floor to 'mop up' leaking effluent
- 4 working showers for 700 people, hot water only available after midnight
- inmates not allowed to take food from dining room for children or sick adults
no coffee/tea/food between meals, only water
no air conditioning, fly screens, heating - temps range from below 0 to 45, millions of flies
have to queue for meals, medical attention, phones (2/1300 people), for up to 2 hours. Persons seeking medical attention (incl. painkillers for broken leg, raging fever, tonsillitis, etc.) each have to queue in the open for up to 1.5 hours to obrtain medications in front of nurse
nails may only be cut by nurse, who will do one person per day
women must queue ezach day for their ration of tampons/disposable nappies
no baby food or formula - one women struggling to maintain breast feeding for her 6-month old was advised to feed powdered chicken stock in water (no sterilised equipment)
food beyond description - many will not eat it
Fair go as a basic quality of Australians?
People who have a 'voice' are usually those who have the material and intellecual capacity needed for the task - usually those who are from the part of society whose fundamental rights are rarely threatened
"If I ever go back home, I will be in immediate danger of being killed. I also have to say that staying in this camp is worse than being dead!!! I really wish I was dead! There is no law or rule here!! Tehy are so many different type of people and no body respect anybody." letter from an inmate
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty--power is ever stealing from the many to the few...The hand entrusted with power becomes... the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity." Wendell Phillips, 1852 Boston
'Anti-terrorism' legislation in Aus: National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act (NSI)
2002: incommunicado detention for 1 week of people not suspected of any wrong-doing (e.g. thought to have information about others who may have been involved in terrorist offences)
- may be taken into isolated custody
- not ahvea free choice of legal help
not permitted to tell friends or familyw here they are
must answer questions or face 5 years imprisonment
when released, not permitted to tell anyone where they were or what happened to them on pain of imprisonment
2005:person being jailed for up to 14 days in circumstances where thye have not been charged with/convicted of any offense
order obtained in absense of subject
authorises taking of person into custody
not told evidence on which order obtained
given copy of order and 'summary' of the grounds on which the order was made
summary need nopt include any information that is likely to prejudice national security
federal police can issue control order: can include house arrest for up to 12 montsh w/o access to phone or internet
'war on terrorism' - metaphorical, so can extend indefinitely
e.g. Hicks as enemy combatant, despite being cit. of Aus (therefore ally), and fighting with Taliban - lawful govt. of Afghanistan BEFORE US had declared war on it
'A thing, once seen, cannot be unseen; and when you have seen a great moral crime, to remain silent is as much a political act as to speak against it.' Arundhati Roy
"It might shock the fine sensibilities of the state's counsel that this boy was put into a culvert and left after he was dead, but, your Honor, I can think of a scene that makes this pale into insignificance. I can think... of taking two boys, one 18 and the other 19, irresponsible, weak, diseased, penning them in a cell, checking off the days and the hours and the minutes, until they will be taken out and hanged... I can picture them, wakened in the grey light of morning, furnished a suit of clothes by the state, led to the scaffold, their feet tied, black caps drawn over their heads, swtood on a trap door, the hangman pressing a spring, so that it gives way under them; I can see them fall through space--and--stopped by the rope around their necks." Darrow, Leopold and Loeb case
November 29, 2014
Julian Burnside opened my eyes to the truth about Australia's cruelty to asylum seekers. He also illustrates the fragility of the precious liberties and rights that we take for granted. When the rights of any one group are denied, we are all in danger. I now fear our politicians much more than I fear terrorists.
May 28, 2009
I wish everybody would read this. It explains Australia's obligations under international law, regarding asylum seekers and our treatment of them, in really clear, plain English.
January 11, 2024
3.5 stars. Julian Burnside writes passionately about human rights with respect to asylum seekers, capital punishment and access to justice.
The structure made his arguments hard to follow at times, however the selection of historical anecdotes were highly engagement and effective in drawing out the underlying justice principles which continue to be relevant to this day.
The structure made his arguments hard to follow at times, however the selection of historical anecdotes were highly engagement and effective in drawing out the underlying justice principles which continue to be relevant to this day.
April 16, 2022
Nice book spelling out exactly the human rights atrocities occurring in Australia even today.
November 4, 2013
Julian Burnside is the Australian poster-boy for human rights and refugee law and he fills a place that is greatly needed within society to promote these issues. The book is a collection of essays on varying topics and despite having been published a few years ago (we've had a change of government since), the issues and responses of the government are still the same. While it was sometimes repetitive, with similar essays being placed together it emphasised the need to change and to educate Australians about these issues. While I have studied international law, it is written in non-legalese which makes it great for anyone interested in the topic. While not as comprehensive as Geoffrey Robertson's "Crimes Against Humanity", it provides a good introduction to issues that Australia faces.
January 30, 2012
This book is worth a look, but it is not really the insightful examination of human rights issues in Australia it claims to be. Rather it is a clumsily assembled compendium of essays by Julian Burnside on human rights issues, this is fine except many times essay back to back will cover 90% of the same material, and after a while, his writing style just gets boring and annoying. Worth reading for the info, but not a good book.
June 21, 2013
Unhesitatingly confronts the intricate issues surrounding the Australian commitment to predominantly foreign human rights policy with a focus on refugees and those seeking asylum. Offers clarity into a murky subject area and writes in a style accessible to every reader. At times shocking, and riddled with "I can't believe it" moments, Watching Brief is a good reminder of why sitting back and letting immature partisan politics deal with human rights issues is not an option.
April 29, 2008
An incredibly insightful and thought provoking work from an extraordinary man. Inspiring and depressing
July 23, 2012
An interesting insight into the legal process.
June 6, 2013
Really interesting, but a hard read at times.
November 30, 2014
Insights into a wonderful person
December 28, 2015
Great insight into the justice system in Australia in the early 2000s.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews