Friday, May 12, 2006

The Legal System Failed to Uphold People’s Constitutional Rights

On 10 May the High Court dismissed Hilda’s applications for pursuing her Constitutional right without any hearing http://www.highcourt.gov.au/registry/slresults/10-05-06_results.pdf. It has been proved by the whole legal system that a citizen has no right to uphold and obey law if it is against their employers’ will. The legal system works for the employers, therefore the employers have powers over both the law and the Constitution. That is why the scandals of HIH, One-Tel and AWB are unavoidable

The rights to falsify accounting records and reports (cook the books) are dear to employers. That is a basic method to get rich and to pay less tax (to cover corruptions and other problems for public sections and for no profit organizations). The rights to cook transcripts and judgments are also dear to judges who abuse their powers.

Our petitions have worked in some way. The initial deadline for the petitions was by 8 May after the Notices of a Constitutional Matter were filed and served on 21 April. On 4 May the High Court informed the parties by post that orders would be published on 10 May. Therefore we have no time to present the petitions to the parliaments and to give the Attorneys times to responses to them. In normal circumstances the Court informs the parties two weeks before hearings or before delivering judgments.

By proceeding the application for special leave in 10 workdays after filing the Notices, the High Court contravened s 78B of the Judiciary Act 1903: “It is the duty of the court not to proceeding in the cause unless and until the court satisfied that notice of the cause, specifying the nature of the matter has been given to the Attorneys-General…… and a reasonable time has elapsed since the giving of the notice for consideration……” (emphasis added). The governments said that their reasonable times in response to enquiry are four weeks.

So far, 5 out of 9 of the Attorneys responded to the Notices in writing. Two of them signed by the Solicitors-General and declared that they would not be intervening the matter of costs but failed to declare whether they would intervene the substantive matter. Another three signed by solicitors in their capacity as solicitors and declared that they would not be intervening at the stage of special leave and might intervene if special leaves were granted.

Apparently none of the Attorneys denied the Constitutional matters arouse from the Notices, but none of them were keen to uphold the people’s rights under the Constitution and under the Workplace Relation Act 1996. Ironically, at the moment, all of the States are against the Commonwealth in the High Court on the issue that, under the Constitution, who should have the powers to deal with the industrial relations matters.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/HCATrans/2006/215.html http://www.highcourt.gov.au/registry/dailylists/10-05-06.html http://www.highcourt.gov.au/registry/dailylists/11-05-06.html
Even though AWB is still on the agenda and the government is spending millions dollars on that. The attitudes of both the Courts and Attorneys-General toward the peoples’ Constitutional rights have proved that our appeals for the petitions are necessary for the social justice. The petitions are necessary.

On 9 May relevant information were forwarded to International Labour Organization, Amnesty International and local media: The Age, Herald Sun, The Financial Review, The Australian, The ABC’s Four Corners, The Mail and The Melbourne Weekly Magazine etc..

(file below is downloadable as .jpg file)


letter from a Crown Solicitor of Queensland 05/05/06
letter from a State Solicitor of Western Australia 09/05/06