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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (9 May) . . Page.. 1251 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

As for persons on remand without bail or waiting for a bail hearing, I remind members that various safeguards have been built into our criminal justice over the centuries since Magna Carta. I note what an historical morning it has been with Mr Osborne's speech in relation to the Attorney's proposal to impose taxation by regulation. Mr Osborne went back not quite as far as the Magna Carta but at least to Edward I.

We are talking here about important fundamental principles. A fundamental principle was espoused by Mr Osborne this morning on behalf of the scrutiny of bills committee, a fundamental principle about the right of parliament to scrutinise the imposition of taxation. Here we are talking again about a fundamental principle: the fundamental principle of the right of a detained person to face their accusers in an open court. That is a right that is being frittered away here. It is a fundamental right to appear in open court, to face one's accusers and to face those who will judge whether or not we are to be denied our liberty. I ask: how can any reasonable person say that a hearing conducted by audiovisual link, one end of which is in a police or prison cell, constitutes an open hearing?

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales devoted his keynote address to the Australian Legal Convention that took place in Canberra in October last year to the issue of open justice. He described the principle that justice must be seen to be done-that is, the principle of open justice-as one of the most pervasive axioms of the administration of justice in our legal system. In the words of the Chief Justice:

Debate often has a tendency to ignore such fundamental principles in the same way as we have failed to appreciate the way in which political change occurs in this country without the violence that often occurs in other nations. No-one thinks about it. We take it for granted. So we ask the question: to whom must justice appear to be done? The Chief Justice pointed out:

We often refer in this place to the rights and obligations that we have accepted under international conventions. We debate the relevance of those, as it suits or does not suit our argument. But these are fundamental principles that we signed up to as a nation. I refer members to article 14 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, which was ratified by Australia, as everybody knows, and which provides:

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