This is not a great look: link, judgment.  The High Court in Cesan v The Queen; Mas Rivadavia v The Queen [2008] HCA 52 has overturned two criminal convictions on the basis that the trial judge was asleep (and snoring) during large parts of the trial.
Having been a judge’s associate I can certainly sympathise with [...]

A Canadian court has recently handed down what seems like an eminently sensible judgment concerning defamation on the Internet: story/judgment.  In essence, the decision means that (for Canadian purposes) linking to a defamatory web page does not itself amount to defamation.  The Supreme Court of British Columbia drew an analogy between hyperlinks and footnotes, which [...]

It’s hard not to enjoy it when a non-lawyer witness confounds a lawyer in court.
As such I really enjoyed this link sent to me by Tom (no website AFAIK) in which the hapless Mr Lovelace, barrister at law, attempts to cross-examine the crafty Arnold Chrysler, accused mass coat hanger thief (really), in the UK High [...]

This kind of thing makes grim but not at all surprising reading. Just as they did in the 1950s and 1960s, the powers that be are making it their business to infiltrate groups of citizens attempting to exercise their legitimate democratic rights. Not surprisingly, the targets seem to be progressive and human rights [...]

In a recent interview, everyone’s favourite extreme right wing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia remarked that he found it ‘absurd’ to think that authorities couldn’t torture an individual who had information about an imminent terrorist attack (another take).  Picking up on the widespread belief that terrorists will hand themselves in for interrogation minutes before [...]

The Sydney Morning Herald and Catholic News tell us that judges and other members of the legal community in New South Wales recently participated in ‘Red Mass’, a European tradition in which members of the legal profession seek divine guidance for the courts.
The image of judges – wearing the robes which represent their role in [...]

This is an extraordinary decision by the Industrial Relations Commission.  Telstra has had its right to sack an employee upheld, where the basis of the sacking was that she had sex with another employee (or employees, it seems) outside of work hours and then refused to tell her benevolent employer corporation the details.
In the first [...]

I just became aware of this piece of legislation, recently introduced into the South Australian Parliament: the Serious Crime (Control) Bill 2007 (SA). You can see the bill here in Rich Text Format or here in PDF.
This legislation is ostensibly aimed at bikie gangs, but it goes a lot further than that, and doesn’t [...]

The South Australian Government has gone ahead with legislation to ban David Hicks from selling his story.  He’s still allowed to tell his story, but he’s not allowed to sell it.  Lucky him.  Presumably he’ll be able to find a job with no problems – after all, he was never convicted of anything by a [...]

Confirming that the United States still regards the phrase “war on terror” to mean “license for continuing and willful insanity”, a lawyer representing the U.S. in a high profile case in England has indicated that the U.S. view is that the covert abduction of foreign nationals in order to bring them to America to face [...]

Britain’s Lord Justice Sedley has caused quite a fuss by suggesting that all Britons (and any visitors to the Isles) should be added to the British criminal DNA database (alternative article).
Unsurprisingly the suggestion has caused all kinds of hysteria which seems to rather miss his Lordship’s point: it’s fundamentally inequitable to have some people in [...]

This is an interesting development in the US – an appellate court has ruled that it is legal to ’swap’ votes, and also to facilitate the swapping of votes.
The idea emerged in the 2000 presidential election campaign – supporters of third-party candidate Ralph Nader and supporters of Al Gore would strategically swap votes to maximise [...]

This week is turning into a big week for the notion of the separation of powers in Australia.  As you (should) know, the separation of power between the judiciary and the parliament/executive is one of the devices included in our Constitution to prevent abuses of power by those who govern on our behalf.
In addition to the clash [...]

This interesting rant on The Road to Surfdom kindly makes the point that not all lawyers are evil – just the ones who consistently seek to undermine the legal process for political gains. Others, such as Dr Haneef’s lawyer Stephen Keim QC, are courageous and prepared to take real risks in the pursuit of [...]

You may have come across this story over the last few months – one Mr Hew Griffiths, an Australian software pirate – was extradited to the United States and prosecuted for offences under US copyright law. He subsequently pleaded guilty in a court in Virginia.
Some insightful commentary is here, on LawFont:
But we should be [...]