Darroch Ball
Co-leader Sensible Sentencing Trust.
The problem with governments is that, more often than not, a tragedy has to occur before any meaningful laws are changed. Then, for some strange reason, those law changes can bypass all the bovine scatology and happen overnight.
The issue with the terrorism laws in our country was known in 2018 and, apparently, the process was started to get them changed. Just three years on, the flaw in that law has been tragically exposed, and now the Prime Minister says the laws will be changed overnight – à la Christchurch 2019.
Yes the terrorism laws need to be tightened but the most important question seems to have been overlooked – “Why was this ISIS sympathiser, dangerous enough to be under surveillance, who was assessed as an imminent threat to the community, who was under current charges of assaulting prison officers, allowed to be bailed into the community?”
The simple answer is we have a chronically weak judiciary and even weaker laws under which they operate.
The number one priority and consideration of the court should be the safety of the community. But here we have a clear example of a judge firstly, inexplicably releasing this guy on bail when he could have continued to be held in custody on assault charges, but also refusing the crown’s request for GPS monitoring.
In the sentencing notes from 6 July obtained by Sensible Sentencing Trust, Justice Sally Fitzgerald declined the crown’s submission to sentence him to intensive supervision and sentenced him to simple supervision instead.
She stated the following:
“I am sentencing you to supervision, and so I cannot impose conditions relating to electronic monitoring. Nor would I have done so even if I had sentenced you to intensive supervision. In my view, conditions relating to your online activity and monitoring of that activity are much more relevant to reduce the risk of you re-offending.”
And this:
“A sentence of intensive supervision would permit me to impose conditions for a longer period of time than a sentence of supervision. That may help support your rehabilitation. It would also permit electronic monitoring. Nevertheless, I am very conscious of the lengthy time you have already spent in custody, and that I must impose the least restrictive sentence that is appropriate.”
The judge was “conscious of the lengthy time” the ISIS terrorist had already spent in custody. The same guy who all of our top agencies know is going to offend. The same guy who is not only on a watch list but under 24-hour surveillance. Put back on the streets.
How is this doing ‘everything that can possibly be done under the law’?
If the judiciary and the law is meant to protect our community, they have demonstrably failed.
The flaws in the legislation are one thing, but when we have a system that is so inherently weak and so blatant in their bias towards offenders’ rights, we as a country are on a hiding to nothing.
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