Human Rights Commission defends regime – not youth
Jennifer Nash | 14.03.2009 05:55 | Education | Repression | Social Struggles | World
This article discusses the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s role in covering up human rights abuses and in denying Australians access to an effective remedy to severe school bullying and education discrimination under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) signed by Australia in 1976, The Rights of the Child and The Rights of the Disabled which form part of Australia’s human rights legislation.
On 16 - 17 March, Melbourne will hold the Human Rights Conference 2009 hosted by Victoria’s Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. Whether Australians will actually benefit from this talkfest remains to be seen.
From my very personal experiences I know that Australia tends to ignore the human rights of children until it is too late and unless they are juvenile delinquents in which case they are actually entitled to independent legal youth advocacy.
My home state of Queensland does in fact have a Children’s Commissioner but he is unfortunately a politically appointed stooge for the government and does absolutely nothing to protect children. Most people don’t even know he exists because he hardly ever speaks.
My personal experiences with Australia’s disgraceful human rights mechanism are described in the following articles. Supreme Court 'orders bullied schoolboy to pay costs'
http://mathaba.net/news/?x=572486 Bullied schoolboy wants Anna Bligh to address judicial corruption http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/02/386941.shtml Kevin Rudd and Robert McClelland must address judicial corruption http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/03/225156.php Bullied schoolboy wants Kevin Rudd to address judicial corruption http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=618292 Australia’s lone stance against civil rights bill and how juristocracy enables this and blocks debate http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=616222 Attorney General misleads the people http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/424062.html
Australia’s Human Rights Commissioners (all politically appointed cronies, of course just to make sure), like to talk a lot and attend conferences all around the world, misleading Australians and the international community on the true state of affairs on human rights in Australia. Yet when it comes to being proactive and actually protecting and speaking up about human rights they are all very, very quiet.
None of them can really be described as proper and independent human rights advocates. It is all too clear that they are just there to rubber stamp the regime’s wishes and not to speak out about gross social injustices perpetrated by the state against young school aged children for instance.
Commissioner Graeme Innes, from Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (hreoNOT!), will take part in this talkfest. Mr Innes has always refused to help my teenage son in any way and always refused to advocate against the human rights abuses perpetrated against my son at school and by Education Queensland and then in Australia’s harrowing legal system where we were systematically abused and terrorised as I told Brisbane Radio 4BC listeners during my interview with Chuck Brooks.
I have repeatedly detailed how our courtroom audio tapes and transcripts were repeatedly severely edited in order to pervert the course of justice in front of 4 (four) different Judges in the Queensland Anti Discrimination Tribunal and the Supreme Court on at least four separate occasions. This includes Judge Robert Wensley QC the brother of Queensland Governor, Dr Penelope Wensley who has also remained staunchly silent and refused to speak to me or respond.
HreoNOT! President, John von Doussa QC refused to accept my legitimate complaint against the Queensland Juvenile Justice Department which denied my 12 year old son legal youth advocacy out of political expediency in a complaint about severe school bullying and education discrimination, while many other children and even adults in fact received state funded legal representation. But severe and out of control school bullying in Queensland is clearly too much of a hot potato for the government. They just didn’t want to go there!
Mr John von Doussa QC told me that my only option was to seek a judicial review in the Federal Court of Australia against his decision to refuse to accept my legitimate complaint against Juvenile Justice Queensland because it was actually against the law to make a human rights complaint against the State of Queensland. It seems Queensland has effectively made itself immune from prosecution.
As if seeking a judicial review in the adversarial Federal Court without the benefit of legal training or an independent legal youth advocate was really that easy for an everyday Mum! Rather than help my son, hreoNOT! flew up one of their human rights lawyers from Sydney to defend both the Queensland Juvenile Justice Department and hreoNOT! against my son’s complaint.
HreoNOT’s lawyer, Christine Fougere, told Federal Court Judge Geoffrey Spender that my complaint had to be dismissed because it was against the law to lodge a human rights complaint with hreoNOT against the State of Queensland.
At no stage did she ever advocate or acknowledge my son’s human rights under The Rights of the Child, The Rights of the Disabled or The ICCPR. She was purely there to protect the government. And that was very difficult for me to take, as she is supposed to be a human rights lawyer for crying out loud!
Justice Spender agreed and said that he had to dismiss my complaint. Christine Fougere then told the Judge that she had instructions from hreoNOT to seek a costs order for legal expenses against my school aged son.
The Judge declined to make a costs order because my son was a minor, had no money and the complaint was not unreasonable. It is of course very troubling for us that illegal migrants who come to Australia (not all are refugees) and juvenile delinquents and criminals can benefit from the Federal Court of Australia’s pro bono legal scheme, but my Australian born son could not. Come on!
This is justice Oz style but you definitely won’t read about it in Australia’s government controlled press, nor see our story mentioned on television or radio. Since my revelations on air, radio host Chuck Brooks has been sacked, probably for not properly censoring things and for being critical of the oppressive Queensland government. And I have been unable to get onto any radio or television programme anywhere in this country since I told listeners the awful truth on radio.
Nor will you find the decision against my son on the Federal Court of Australia’s website because former Attorney General, Phillip Ruddick ordered that it be removed from the website.
The reported civil rights case of the two deaf children, Tiahna Hurst and Ben Devlin demonstrates that when it comes to denying human rights, the State of Queensland will aggressively defend itself , spend up very big and drag people through very lengthy court ordeals. http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/qld/content/2005/s1346458.htm http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2005/may/23/scd-bitter-tears-flow-for-loss-of-family/
These two families had the support of Deaf Children Australia who partly funded the case. Gail Smith, the mother of Tiahna Hurst, told television viewers that Education Queensland had spent $ 1.2 Million fighting them in court on legal costs over a period of five years.
Isn’t five years for a human rights decision, justice delayed and justice denied? Isn’t that unreasonable and way too long when it comes to determining the welfare and education of children?
While the ordeal of these two families cannot be underestimated they at least had the benefit of a powerful Australia wide lobby group. In stark contrast my son had no one and was completely dependent on me, a layperson who has no legal experience whatsoever.
My local State and Federal Members of Parliament, John Mickel and Craig Emerson continue to deny me representation as a constituent under the Westminster system. All my phone calls, letters and emails to their office have gone unanswered.
And the State and Commonwealth government and Parliament, including the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee refuse to raise our issue in Parliament or investigate my documented and corroborated allegations of judicial abuse and corruption including the unlawful destruction of courtroom evidence. John Mickel is busy concentrating on being re-elected as State Labor member for my area on 21 March.
Premier Anna Bligh is also busy campaigning for her re-election as Queensland Labor Premier on March 21. Both she and Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, also a Queenslander, have dogmatically ignored us and the human rights abuses against us and refuse to acknowledge or comment on my allegations of judicial abuse and corruption in the media.
The mere thought of the possibility of another Fitzgerald type of Inquiry looking into judicial corruption in Queensland as it did into Queensland Police corruption in the late 1980’s must strike fear into their hearts.
And so they are determined to continue to cover up the human rights abuses against us and to continue to ignore the rule of law in order to keep a very firm lid on this.
However I want justice for my son and for the truth to be told. And also for the defamatory and mendacious judicial decisions against us to be quashed or set aside.
Most reasonable people would be able to understand this.
I want to again express my gratitude to the foreign press for reporting our true story and our ongoing ordeal because it certainly is not being reported back here in Australia and the public is totally unaware of what is going on here.
Thank you.
Jennifer Nash,
Brisbane, Australia
jennifernash10@hotmail.com
From my very personal experiences I know that Australia tends to ignore the human rights of children until it is too late and unless they are juvenile delinquents in which case they are actually entitled to independent legal youth advocacy.
My home state of Queensland does in fact have a Children’s Commissioner but he is unfortunately a politically appointed stooge for the government and does absolutely nothing to protect children. Most people don’t even know he exists because he hardly ever speaks.
My personal experiences with Australia’s disgraceful human rights mechanism are described in the following articles. Supreme Court 'orders bullied schoolboy to pay costs'
http://mathaba.net/news/?x=572486 Bullied schoolboy wants Anna Bligh to address judicial corruption http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2009/02/386941.shtml Kevin Rudd and Robert McClelland must address judicial corruption http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/03/225156.php Bullied schoolboy wants Kevin Rudd to address judicial corruption http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=618292 Australia’s lone stance against civil rights bill and how juristocracy enables this and blocks debate http://www.mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=616222 Attorney General misleads the people http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/424062.html Australia’s Human Rights Commissioners (all politically appointed cronies, of course just to make sure), like to talk a lot and attend conferences all around the world, misleading Australians and the international community on the true state of affairs on human rights in Australia. Yet when it comes to being proactive and actually protecting and speaking up about human rights they are all very, very quiet.
None of them can really be described as proper and independent human rights advocates. It is all too clear that they are just there to rubber stamp the regime’s wishes and not to speak out about gross social injustices perpetrated by the state against young school aged children for instance.
Commissioner Graeme Innes, from Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (hreoNOT!), will take part in this talkfest. Mr Innes has always refused to help my teenage son in any way and always refused to advocate against the human rights abuses perpetrated against my son at school and by Education Queensland and then in Australia’s harrowing legal system where we were systematically abused and terrorised as I told Brisbane Radio 4BC listeners during my interview with Chuck Brooks.
I have repeatedly detailed how our courtroom audio tapes and transcripts were repeatedly severely edited in order to pervert the course of justice in front of 4 (four) different Judges in the Queensland Anti Discrimination Tribunal and the Supreme Court on at least four separate occasions. This includes Judge Robert Wensley QC the brother of Queensland Governor, Dr Penelope Wensley who has also remained staunchly silent and refused to speak to me or respond.
HreoNOT! President, John von Doussa QC refused to accept my legitimate complaint against the Queensland Juvenile Justice Department which denied my 12 year old son legal youth advocacy out of political expediency in a complaint about severe school bullying and education discrimination, while many other children and even adults in fact received state funded legal representation. But severe and out of control school bullying in Queensland is clearly too much of a hot potato for the government. They just didn’t want to go there!
Mr John von Doussa QC told me that my only option was to seek a judicial review in the Federal Court of Australia against his decision to refuse to accept my legitimate complaint against Juvenile Justice Queensland because it was actually against the law to make a human rights complaint against the State of Queensland. It seems Queensland has effectively made itself immune from prosecution.
As if seeking a judicial review in the adversarial Federal Court without the benefit of legal training or an independent legal youth advocate was really that easy for an everyday Mum! Rather than help my son, hreoNOT! flew up one of their human rights lawyers from Sydney to defend both the Queensland Juvenile Justice Department and hreoNOT! against my son’s complaint.
HreoNOT’s lawyer, Christine Fougere, told Federal Court Judge Geoffrey Spender that my complaint had to be dismissed because it was against the law to lodge a human rights complaint with hreoNOT against the State of Queensland.
At no stage did she ever advocate or acknowledge my son’s human rights under The Rights of the Child, The Rights of the Disabled or The ICCPR. She was purely there to protect the government. And that was very difficult for me to take, as she is supposed to be a human rights lawyer for crying out loud!
Justice Spender agreed and said that he had to dismiss my complaint. Christine Fougere then told the Judge that she had instructions from hreoNOT to seek a costs order for legal expenses against my school aged son.
The Judge declined to make a costs order because my son was a minor, had no money and the complaint was not unreasonable. It is of course very troubling for us that illegal migrants who come to Australia (not all are refugees) and juvenile delinquents and criminals can benefit from the Federal Court of Australia’s pro bono legal scheme, but my Australian born son could not. Come on!
This is justice Oz style but you definitely won’t read about it in Australia’s government controlled press, nor see our story mentioned on television or radio. Since my revelations on air, radio host Chuck Brooks has been sacked, probably for not properly censoring things and for being critical of the oppressive Queensland government. And I have been unable to get onto any radio or television programme anywhere in this country since I told listeners the awful truth on radio.
Nor will you find the decision against my son on the Federal Court of Australia’s website because former Attorney General, Phillip Ruddick ordered that it be removed from the website.
The reported civil rights case of the two deaf children, Tiahna Hurst and Ben Devlin demonstrates that when it comes to denying human rights, the State of Queensland will aggressively defend itself , spend up very big and drag people through very lengthy court ordeals.
http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/qld/content/2005/s1346458.htm http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2005/may/23/scd-bitter-tears-flow-for-loss-of-family/ These two families had the support of Deaf Children Australia who partly funded the case. Gail Smith, the mother of Tiahna Hurst, told television viewers that Education Queensland had spent $ 1.2 Million fighting them in court on legal costs over a period of five years.
Isn’t five years for a human rights decision, justice delayed and justice denied? Isn’t that unreasonable and way too long when it comes to determining the welfare and education of children?
While the ordeal of these two families cannot be underestimated they at least had the benefit of a powerful Australia wide lobby group. In stark contrast my son had no one and was completely dependent on me, a layperson who has no legal experience whatsoever.
My local State and Federal Members of Parliament, John Mickel and Craig Emerson continue to deny me representation as a constituent under the Westminster system. All my phone calls, letters and emails to their office have gone unanswered.
And the State and Commonwealth government and Parliament, including the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee refuse to raise our issue in Parliament or investigate my documented and corroborated allegations of judicial abuse and corruption including the unlawful destruction of courtroom evidence. John Mickel is busy concentrating on being re-elected as State Labor member for my area on 21 March.
Premier Anna Bligh is also busy campaigning for her re-election as Queensland Labor Premier on March 21. Both she and Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, also a Queenslander, have dogmatically ignored us and the human rights abuses against us and refuse to acknowledge or comment on my allegations of judicial abuse and corruption in the media.
The mere thought of the possibility of another Fitzgerald type of Inquiry looking into judicial corruption in Queensland as it did into Queensland Police corruption in the late 1980’s must strike fear into their hearts.
And so they are determined to continue to cover up the human rights abuses against us and to continue to ignore the rule of law in order to keep a very firm lid on this.
However I want justice for my son and for the truth to be told. And also for the defamatory and mendacious judicial decisions against us to be quashed or set aside.
Most reasonable people would be able to understand this.
I want to again express my gratitude to the foreign press for reporting our true story and our ongoing ordeal because it certainly is not being reported back here in Australia and the public is totally unaware of what is going on here.
Thank you.
Jennifer Nash,
Brisbane, Australia
jennifernash10@hotmail.com
Jennifer Nash
e-mail:
jennifernash10@hotmail.com
