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By\u00a0Mike Head<\/p>\n
(WSWS<\/a>) –\u00a0For the second time in four months, the Abbott government has denounced Australian Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs for criticising the extensive violations of basic legal and democratic rights by successive Australian governments.<\/p>\n Immigration Minister Peter Dutton yesterday renewed the government\u2019s hounding of Triggs, blatantly trying to force her to quit her statutory position, which is not due to finish until 2017. Dutton accused her of becoming a \u201cpolitical advocate,\u201d which made it \u201cvery difficult to continue on.\u201d<\/p>\n Delivering a human rights address last Friday night, Triggs, a law professor, warned of a \u201cgrowing threat to democracy\u201d produced by the terrorism laws, refugee detention, mandatory sentencing and anti-association legislation imposed by Liberal-National and Labor governments alike over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n \u201cRespective governments have been remarkably successful in persuading parliaments to pass laws that are contrary, even explicitly contrary, to common law rights and to the international human rights regime to which Australia is a party,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Triggs said the latest proposal by the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott to strip citizenship from suspected terrorists who are \u201cpotentially dual nationals\u201d was an example. \u201cNot only may this idea violate Australia\u2019s international obligation not to render a person stateless, but also the detention may be at the discretion of a minister without recourse to judicial processes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The human rights commissioner referred to the coming 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the 1215 English charter that enshrined the principle of habeas corpus\u2013no detention without trial. \u201cMagna Carta has something to say about this: it provided that no man is to be \u2018outlawed or exiled\u2019 except by the law of the land,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Triggs listed \u201cscores of laws\u201d that flouted basic civil and political rights, including the three \u201canti-terrorism\u201d laws imposed late last year and the data retention legislation passed in March that requires the storage of all telecommunications data for two years for access by the police and intelligence agencies. Each measure had the support of the Labor Party opposition.<\/p>\n \u201cMany laws introduced with unseemly haste before Christmas in the name of national security go well beyond what might be deemed necessary, creating a chilling effect on freedom of speech and the press and breaching the right to privacy,\u201d Triggs said.<\/p>\n Referring to the data retention laws, Triggs noted: \u201cAs the metadata will be collected in respect of most of the 23 million Australians, and those involved in terrorism or paedophilia are very few, it might be said that the act employs a sledgehammer to crack a nut.\u201d<\/p>\n Turning to last year\u2019s \u201cForeign Fighters Act,\u201d Triggs explained that it introduced a new offence of advocating terrorism, \u201can imprecise crime whose scope may cover, for example, opposing the Assad regime in Syria or supporting Palestinian efforts to gain statehood.\u201d<\/p>\n Other \u201cnational security\u201d laws passed last year created an offence punishable by up to 10 years in jail for disclosing information about a \u201cspecial intelligence operation.\u201d This was likely to \u201chave a chilling effect on legitimate public debate about security operations,\u201d Triggs said.<\/p>\n The commissioner cited numerous examples of the expansion of \u201cdiscretionary\u201d ministerial powers, including:<\/p>\n * Powers to detain indefinitely various classes of individuals, including asylum seekers and the mentally-ill.<\/p>\n * The holding of four indigenous men with intellectual and cognitive disabilities for years in a Northern Territory maximum security prison.<\/p>\n * The indefinite detention of refugees, including children, because of adverse \u201csecurity\u201d assessments \u201cwithout meaningful access to legal advice or judicial review.\u201d<\/p>\n * The reduction of freedom of association from \u201canti-bikie\u201d gang laws.<\/p>\n Triggs\u2019s comments did not go beyond her official remit to scrutinise the country\u2019s performance in meeting its formal international human rights commitments, including under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the international Refugee Convention.<\/p>\n Nor did her comments in any way challenge the bipartisan policy of \u201cstopping the boats\u201d of refugees trying to reach Australia, or the underlying geo-strategic agenda of the \u201cwar on terror\u201d\u2013support for US-led military interventions in the Middle East and globally.<\/p>\n However, by defying the government\u2019s intense attacks on her, she has become something of a lone voice, alerting the public to the police-state powers being imposed domestically. Her stand highlights just how far the rest of legal and political establishment has abandoned any defence of fundamental legal and political rights.<\/p>\n