Top-secret evidence will be allowed in the prosecution of Bernard Collaery, the man who exposed Australian spying in East Timor, an ACT Supreme Court judge has ruled. Greg Barns examines the implications.
Here’s a test. You have been charged with serious criminal offences and are facing a trial. The prosecution says it can use secret evidence against you. Evidence you and your lawyers are unable to see. Instead the court will appoint a special advocate who can look at the secret evidence and represent your interests. Which country are we in? Russia? China? Or in the United States with its infamous Guantanamo Bay military justice system.
Wrong. It’s Australia. A nation whose political class and media spout platitudes about the rule of law and human rights but which has on its statute books the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 (NSI Act) which allows for secret evidence to be used against an accused person.
The secret evidence laws are being applied in the case of the former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery who is being pursued by the Commonwealth over his role in revealing to the world information about an Australian spying operation in East Timor by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in 2004, when John Howard was in government. This was a time when the world’s poorest nation was negotiating with one of the richest about oil and gas rights and revenues in the Timor Sea. Collaery’s co-accused Witness K has pleaded...
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