As Bernard Collaery returns to the ACT Supreme Court for revealing that the federal government spied on neighbour Timor-Leste during tense negotiations, human rights lawyers have once again called for the prosecution to be dropped in its entirety.
The proceedings for lawyer and whistleblower Mr Collaery returned before the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday, 9 February, to hear the Attorney-General’s request to add further, secret evidence. This will support its attempt to reverse an ACT Court of Appeal judgment that denied the federal government a secret trial.
Mr Collaery, who was charged in mid-2018, has continued to fight charges of conspiracy to breach a secrecy provision in the Intelligence Services Act and charges for breaching that provision by communicating with journalists about the Timor-Leste cabinet bugging almost entirely behind closed doors.
Commenting on Mr Collaery’s recent court appearance, Human Rights Law Centre’s senior lawyer Kieran Pender said: “Whistleblowers should be protected, not punished. There is no public interest in prosecuting whistleblowers, and certainly not in secret. The Attorney-General should drop the prosecution – it’s as simple as that.”
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