Like lots of others, I’m not too happy about the Corby case. But I think most of the complaints from Australia have been misdirected. The problem is not with the trial which, while not as procedurally tight as the Australian equivalent, seemed basically fair[1] to me. The real problem is with Corby’s twenty year sentence. The likely imposition of the death penalty on the Bali heroin smugglers is even worse.
The reason that attention hasn’t been focused on this issue is that, as a society, we’re fairly hypocritical about the war on drugs. At one level, we recognise that it’s essentially pointless and unwinnable, like a lot of wars. So we’ve gradually backed away from lengthy prison sentences for bit players, and even abandoned the idea that the capture of a few “Mr Big Enoughs” would make any real difference. But it’s still convenient for us that our neighbours should have draconian laws, the burden of which falls mainly on their own citizens. It’s only when a sympathetic figure like Corby gets 20 years for an offence that might have drawn a good behavior bond in Australia, or when some stupid young people end up facing a firing squad that the contradictions are exposed.
fn1. That is, as fair as other drugs trials. The nature of the war on drugs is that normal legal principles have to be suspended if the law is going to be made to work at all. The routine use of procedures bordering on entrapment, and the effective reversal of the onus of proof, once possession is established, are examples of this, in Australia just as much as in Indonesia.
John Quiggin 
“I doubt a dreadlocked tattoed australian citizen would receive anywhere near that attention that Corby has.”
Oh, its worse than that. I doubt that *any* Australian citizen of Asian extraction would have been so favourably treated by the Australian press.
And on the evidence presented to the judges I’m certain she would indeed have been convicted in Australia. See how far you get blaming unspecified Indonesian baggage handlers if you’re discovered trying to get 4kg of weed through Australian customs. Which is not to say she mightn’t actually be innocent (though I think the odds are against it) – just that the judges can’t be blamed for the conviction if it was wrong.
An Australian of Vietnamese extraction is currently in Vietnam awaiting death by firing squad, but you wont be seeing Channel Nine doing an exclusive interview with this person. What a shame he isn’t an attractive white girl.
I also take some exception to people claiming the Marijuana is a ‘mild’ drug. It is NOT. Having spent many years supporting people with mental health issues, I can assure you that there is a definite link between dope and psychotic illness and severe depression – Terrible chronic illnesses with poor a prognosis.
James – I too would love to know more about the system. Professor Tim Lindsey seems to be the expert, and GuruAnn has posted a few paras he used as a blurb to a lecture. Again, they are not detailed, but they help to fill some gaps.
You are right to point out media double standards, David. I assume you’re talking about Tran Van Thanh. His case was actually quite widely reported in the papers, and I think the government lobbied pretty vigorously for him and his co-accused. But his case hasn’t had the saturation coverage Corby’s has. Her celebrity is partly a snowball efect, I’m sure, but the fact that she’s ‘Australian’ and personable must be a factor.
However, the appropriate response is not to leave Corby to her fate, but to use the opportunity to publicise all these cases of excessive penalties including Thanh’s.
And what are we meant to infer from your comment about the effects of marijuana? That a twenty-year sentence is appropriate? You must be kidding. It may have adverse effects but are they worse than the effects of alcohol abuse? To the extent that selling vodka is a respectable business while selling dope warrants twenty years’ jail?
In case it’s not obvious, my previous comment was in reply to David H.
To David T: Thanks for that link. I’ll check it out.
Does anyone know what the minimum sentence for drug trafficking is in crimes of this nature? I would expect that the judge could observe the forms of (INDON) jurisprudence by convicting Ms Corby, whilst showing some political (towards AUS) discretion by handing down the minimum penalty to this woebegone lass.
That would be the least he could do to placate the public outcry over the flaws in the prosecution case, and acknowledge the good-will generated by AUS’s largesse in the Tsunami appeal.
Re: Beautiful people get more attention, so what? Read Smith
Fellas, just before we get all worked up again in self-guilt and how channel nine et al. preys on gold coast beauty therapists, let not forget that this bias is not something that has been constructed by the modern mass media, but is surely something that is an innate part of Homo Sapien’s nature. Beautiful people get more attention- it’s a fact of life. Whatever the angle, Corby’s case has undoubtedly made a lot of more people think about issues such as ‘what constitutes a fair legal system’ and the drug issue. Whats really annoying is that people do not simply pay attention to but rather have more sympathy for beautiful people. As all economists can tell you, the same point was raised in Adam Smith’s lectures on rhetoric and the moral sentiments. His advice: the impartial spectator within all of us is a learnt faculty, and one that gets better with practice. In short, we need more Ray martin, ACA, and gold coast beauticians in morally challenging situations.
the problem with “the baggage handler did it” defence is that, if you accept it, you also accept that no one will ever be found guilty of a drug trafficking offence ever again, provided they have the minimal intelligence to smuggle their drugs inside checked-in baggage. upon a cop or customs official finding the drugs in your bag, the accused just shrugs their shoulders and says “i have no idea how they got there. you can’t prove my intent” etc.
as john pointed out, under australian law for trafficking offences, the onus of proof is reversed once possession is established. it is precisely because lawmakers want to make sure people will be found guilty, and pertinently because lawmakers want “the baggage handler did it” defence to have buckleys.
while i do actually believe corby to have been innocent, i don’t doubt that on the available evidence [assuming an australian court would’ve let the hearsay evidence in, which is unlikely] she would’ve been convicted in an australian court.
James Farrell,
Yes, Nguyen Van Chinh was whom I was referring.
Also, I understand how you may have concluded that I thought 20 years was a just sentence. This wasn’t the case. My comment was a general statement directed at many people I have heard/read stating that marijuana is a harmless drug.
“the problem with “the baggage handler did itâ€? defence is that, if you accept it, you also accept that no one will ever be found guilty of a drug trafficking offence ever again”
BS. The baggage handler defense only has legs because of lax security procedures at Australian airports. If the airlines screened their handlers, if they installed hidden cameras in baggage areas, added more sophisticated tracking (eg recording baggage weight at checkin), etc, such a defense would be much harder to run.
On another note, Tom Percy, One of the Australian QCs who has been asked to help Schapelle Corby’s defence team says he doubts she would have been found guilty if she had faced the same charges in Australia.
So, JQ, are you going to retract your “basically fair” assessment of the trial? Either that, or you have to claim that an acquittal in Australia would be “basically unfair”.
Somehow I doubt we’ll see a retraction; supporting the Indonesian justice system over Corby seems to have become another sacred cow of the politically correct latte left.
Regardless of the merits of the prosecution case in the matter of Corby, and regardless of the perceived harshness or appropriateness of the 20 year sentence, cynical populism is the winner.
Is it any surprise that standards of Indonesian justice are different from Australian? Haven’t Corby and everyone one else with a 2 cent opinion on this matter been reading the newspapers for at least the past five years?
Channel 9 has been blowing the dog whistle of racism with all its considerable might, and in true pavlovian fashion, Howard has thrown Corby a concrete life preserver in the form of two (count ’em: TWO) QCs.
Public policy takes another dip into the gutter.
Katz, the politically interesting thing is that all the Howard Government’s efforts on Corby’s behalf haven’t satisfied the Corby family and Corby’s supporters generally (Corby’s mother – “people power will make Howard get off his arse”). It finds itself under criticism from people like ourselves (for making efforts on Corby’s behalf which aren’t being made on behalf of 155 other Australians in a similar plight around the world) and from the punters who apparently want it to engage in one or other Rambo act against Indonesia over the Corby case.
I read in this morning’s papers that protest campaigns are being planned, including a vigil on Corby’s upcoming birthday. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Free Corby movement could intervene in some way in the next Federal election, if (as may well happen) the issue hasn’t been settled in Corby’s favour and is still at the front of the Mob’s mind by then. If this eventuates, my intuition is that it will be unhelpful for the Coalition, although for all my anti-Coalition instincts I would nonetheless be deeply troubled if an Australian government fell over such an unmeritorious issue.
“Unmeritorious issue”??
Only amongst the politically correct crowd for whom any “Mob”-driven movement must, by definition, be unworthy.
If you think the issue is unmeritorious then I want you to travel with me on my next overseas trip, as custodian of my bags. Better still, why don’t you offer baggage tampering indemnification to all Australians traveling internationally? I’d be willing to pay quite a bit for such insurance; you could make a killing.
Reading the letters to the editor and listening to the airwaves I don’t think MSM can be accused of driving the hysteria, but rather are being driven by Joe Public on this. IMO the planets have all aligned to make Schapelle’s case one of conspicuous outrage for Oz.
Yes its human nature to judge people by their looks and background and she looks like the girl next door. Also Oz doesn’t view possessing 4.1kg of MJ as a hanging offence, nor worthy of life or 20 yrs. However the vast majority could wear ‘when in Rome’ justice and penalties, providing they seemed somewhat consistent, which the penalty for Abu Bakr Bashir clearly did not. Shoot the bastard like Mukhlas! Enter the feeling that Indo justice is politically and culturally biased here. Also the spectre of corruption and being stitched up unjustly which has created a sense of paranoia for a well travelled Oz public, particularly when they see baggage handlers as having been involved in baggage tampering and coke smuggling. Shock, horror! There but for the grace of God go we all.
The bottom line out of all this is that the vast majority now firmly believe Corby is a saint and want Howard to get the SAS in there or something, anything, to get this poor white woman out of the clutches of a bunch of ingrate(Tsunami relief) murdering, muslim, brown savages, which of course we know they are from ET. Guilt or innocence be buggered!
Here’s a couple of representative samples from The Advertiser;
“It may be time for the Aust Govt to review illegal fishing trade penalties. There is now good reason for mandatory life sentences.”
“I am a fair minded Australian who applies logic to most things in life. I have always voted Liberal but never again! We here in Aust can only look at the Corby case from the outside but how this govt can let a person stay one day in prison and be convicted by a kangaroo court is beyond most fair thinking Australians… Howard and your cronies, you will never live this one down..”
Imagine the ones they didn’t print?
How you get “clutches of a bunch of ingrate(Tsunami relief) murdering, muslim, brown savages, which of course we know they are from ET” from those letters to the Advertiser is beyond me.
I don’t get the sense that this is a racist issue at all. Your other comments are valid, but not the racist line. Any Australian that has travelled to Indonesia knows it has a long way to go to become a first-world country. But that is just a fact, not racist.
anon,
I did say the airwaves(talkback) as well. Letters to the Ed in newspapers are generally a lot more modest and censored. Generally the criticism seems to have a strong cultural overtone, but ‘monkey country’ isn’t exactly racially PC. Just ask Aka about the use of the term ‘monkeys’.
I believe the statement that Schapelle’s sister owns a surf shop in Bali is incorrect and an urban myth. Anyone got the real low down on that?
observa,
There’s strong selection bias in the talkback shock-jocks – I don’t think they are representative of “Joe Public” as you put it.
Needless to say, there is a wide range of opinion amongst the Australian public on this, and no doubt there will be racist ones too. But to tar every Australian who reacts negatively to the trial as racist is not credible – it is simply the usual trick employed by the policers of political correctness to stifle open debate.
Who has tarred “*every Australian* who reacts negatively to the trial as racist”? It is simply stating the obvious to say that some such responses have been racist, whilst others (e.g. to withhold aid to tsunami survivors, to boycott Bali tourism) are clearly irrational, being both unjust to Indonesian people who have little control over the court proceedings, and almost certainly unhelpful to Schapelle Corby’s cause.
Also, the “unmeritorious issue” I was referring to was not the need to improve baggage handling procedures at airports, the honestly held belief of many that the judges might have got it wrong, or the (in my view) thoroughly meritorious view that the action of which Corby has been convicted should not carry anything like a 20 year sentence. It is the idea that the Australian government should respond to adverse decisions against Australian nationals in the courts of neighbouring countries by dissing those countries’ judicial processes and doing “whatever it takes” to beat the neighbouring government into submission, including forms of collective punishment such as denial of humanitarian aid to people in desperate need, commercial boycotts against people who desperately need our trade, and even military action (some comments on pro-Corby sites have gone this far).
“Who has tarred “every Australian who reacts negatively to the trial as racist?â€?
Observa has, viz:
“The bottom line out of all this is that the vast majority now firmly believe Corby is a saint and want Howard to get the SAS in there or something, anything, to get this poor white woman out of the clutches of a bunch of ingrate(Tsunami relief) murdering, muslim, brown savages, which of course we know they are from ET. Guilt or innocence be buggered!
Here’s a couple of representative samples from The Advertiser;”
And he then proceeds to present some decidedly non-racist letters to the editor as evidence for this racism.
If you claim non-racist comments are racist, then you are tarring everyone who makes non-racist comments as racist, unless you provide some objective means by which to distinguish the non-racist from the racist other than by your say-so.
The conviction would carry a lot more weight if it had been given by a judge who had got to the bit in the book that says: “Prosecution witnesses, particularly those who do not speak the same language as the accused, occasionally lie or are mistaken. You do have the option to acquit.”
Paul Norton: “It [the unmeritorious issue] is the idea that the Australian government should respond to adverse decisions against Australian nationals in the courts of neighbouring countries by dissing those countries’ judicial processes and doing “whatever it takesâ€? to beat the neighbouring government into submission, including forms of collective punishment such as denial of humanitarian aid to people in desperate need, commercial boycotts against people who desperately need our trade, and even military action (some comments on pro-Corby sites have gone this far).”
It is a classic tool of the dishonest debater to deliberately misrepresent your opponent’s position as broader than it is, and then attack the broader stance. In this case, I don’t believe anyone is advocating without qualification that the “Australian government should respond to adverse decisions against Australian nationals in the courts of neighbouring countries”. For example, although the Australian government has (quite rightly in my opinion) received a lot of flak for helping place the Bali 9 in a position where they face the death penalty, few people are advocating the same kind of intervention in their case quite simply because they are pretty clearly guilty, and guilty of a far more serious crime (to a much greater extent than MJ, heroin really does screw up people’s lives).
Corby’s case is very different. Particularly for those of us who have travelled to Bali, observa’s remark “There but for the grace of God go we all” sums it up nicely. I have no desire to hurt the Balinese, but I also have no intention of traveling there again until I can be: A) confident of a fair trial there; and B) confident that my baggage will not be tampered with.
If it is the case that Corby would not have been convicted here (as a leading Perth QC has suggested), then I completely agree with those who suggest the Australian government should do more. It is Australian taxpayer dollars that fund our aid to Indonesia; the Australian taxpayers have every right to withhold that aid if the Indonesian justice system is found wanting. Why should we demand less of a foreign government than we demand of our own?
The perception of risk appears to be going haywire as a result of Schapelle Corby as well.
250,000 plus Australians visit Bali annually as I read it. One is possibly the victim of an injustice. The proof for most who support her, the arrest of baggage handlers in Australia who transport drugs in Australia in MULES baggage. So the odds that an innocent party will have drugs placed in their luggage, by mistake when they are travelling overseas rather than domestically, because the smuggler has mistaken their luggage for a mules luggage, and stuff up getting it out again. And they will be grabbed by corrupt Indonesian custom officials and tried before a mad judge. I would reckon the odds of this happening to an Australian going to Bali are much lower than the odds of being killed by a hippopotamus in Kenya for example.
How many die or are injured in Bali in vehicle accidents. 43 Americans have been killed in Australia between 2002 and 2004, so it is not exactly safe here either.
And as has been pointed out innocents from abroad have been goaled here.
Suddenly being frightened of flying seems quite rational.
Report from Mr percy a bit confusing.
Mr Percy said he doubted she would have been found guilty if tried on the same charges in Australia
and
Mr Percy said he felt sorry for the former 27-year-old Gold Coast woman and believed if she had been charged in Australia with the same crime her punishment would have been far less.
Gee, anon, how did you get this issue to be a “left vs right” one? What the hell has “political correctness” got to do with it? It’s a fact of life that an Australian who happens not to be a young, attractive, female Caucasian would not get anything like the same sympathy – you don’t need to be an associate lecturer in Cultural Studies at a Dawkins uni to see that. And anyway there are probably plenty of right wingers who are muttering “shootings too good for drug runners”.
Mate, not everything comes down to political ideology.
I think she probably is guilty (the evidence seems to stack up) but I have some doubt partly because I was not at the trial and partly just because there always is some doubt.
I also oppose the legalisation of marijuana and other illicit drugs.
But twenty years is a ridiculously severe sentence — though comparable to some zero-tolerance cocaine sentences in the US. How about a month in jail and a $10,000 file for this sort of crime? Reserve 20-life sentences for murders, rapists with the death penalty or life imprisonment for bombers who kill innocents in bars.
The comments here against the validity of the “Mob” response, and against any debate about the quality of the Indonesian justice system are squarely those of the politically correct. And political correctness is overwhelmingly associated with the left. So I’d say a lot of what we’re reading here does come down to political ideology.
I don’t doubt that a lot of the sympathy for Corby comes from the fact that people can identify with her. But that doesn’t alter the issues.
And blanket comparison between her case and the other Australians languishing in SE Asian jails ignores the fact that the majority of the other cases are for attempted importation of _heroin_ back into Australia – so no baggage tampering issues and clear profit motive, both of which are lacking in the Corby case.
Anon:
“I also have no intention of traveling there again until I can be: A) confident of a fair trial there; and B) confident that my baggage will not be
tampered with. ”
So where are you going for your next hollidays ? USA? Europe? I dont think your chances there are much better (especially if you buy the baggage-handler story). Whats your reference point for measuring the riskiness of travelling to indonesia relative to another country? this is, as Kahneman et al. would tell you, a classic example of the ‘framing problem’ in risk perception, where one particular issue that has grabbed attention has heavily influenced your judgement. ( As an aside, Herbert Simon in “models of my life” asks why people travel in the first place, if it is to gain information theybd be better of at the library, if it is to relax and recuperate they’d be better off at home, from a purely risk minimzing perspective of course)
As for the racism issue, i think there is a subtle difference between a) happening to sympathize with someone because they are more like you, b) and negatively discriminating against ppl who are not like you. According to most people a) seems ok and is probably inherent and b) is the real problem. But as the corby case shows, once a) happens, b) does not lie far off.
Last (not so serious) comment: RE election impact: Anyone else notices a strange similarity between Corby and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-named?? Somethign about that face… 20 bucks says David Oldfield appear in Bali within the next 6 weeks (and is caught smuggling 3 kilos of red hair dye), and ye old one nation runs with the issue at the next election.
Now that would be politics… anyone game?
I’m also nervous about USA and Europe. I believe you’d have a much better chance in the judicial systems there; but until the issues with Aussie baggage handlers are resolved I am likely to vacation in Australia or go places where I can make do with just carry-on.
BTW, I regularly travel to the US on business and I never check bags because I’ve had them lost too many times. Now we have another reason to avoid checking bags (and a renewed suspicion that those lost bags were never lost at all).
As far as what you describe as the “framing problem” goes, I am usually the guy who’ll tell the frightened flyer that they have a greater chance of being decked head-on by a semi crossing the road than they have of going down in a flaming heap on a jet. But most ways to die by accident are pretty comparable (to me) so a rational calculation based on the probabilities is appropriate. However, regardless of the probability, what is the right cost to attach to wrongful imprisonment, or worse, wrongful execution?
(BTW, to me this is the resolution of your “framing problem”: those who “irrationally” fear flying are not really irrational if you accept that for them the cost of dying in a plane accident is far greater than the cost of being hit by a truck (after all, falling knowingly to your death is potentially far more frightening)).
I take drugs regularly, as do 80% of my friends/acquaintances – dope, pills, coke, speed, dexies… Of all of us, no-one is a junkie, and most of us have successful (very, in some cases) careers. For better or worse, the not-so-underground is winning the war on drugs, despite the rhetoric/bullsh!t that’s often spoken. Having “fun” shouldn’t be a crime, and as far as we’re concerned, it’s not.
Hello from the US — I’ve been following this case closely from California. While I’m not surprised by the verdict, I am surprised by how many similar stories I’ve found about Australians who were bewildered by the discovery drugs in their baggage after retrieving them from the airport as they traveled to or from Indonesia. Thankfully they somehow escaped what Ms. Corby is enduring because they were not searched and hence the mysterious stow away drugs were not found. I think if they haven’t already, if would be very responsible of the Australian government to advise travelers headed to South East Asia to take only carry on luggage and never check any bags. Wouldn’t that be fun for airport officials to deal with?
anon,
As a resident of Adelaide I can only report the reaction gleaned from here. With the high profile Nemer and McGee legal outcomes(inadequate prosecution and ridiculously low penalties)recently, SA may be more conspicuously outraged at the Corby result than in your more civilised neck of the woods. As a nicotine addict, her penalty seems a bit excessive to me personally. As I said the planets all aligning on this case, means there’s likely to be a bit of outrage in it for all of us, irrespective of how PC we are or not.
Nevertheless, I think it will only take the MSM to cotton on to the fact that this young woman is unlikely to be the martyred saint a lot of outraged people now want her to be, for her to become yesterday’s news. How so? All it might take is a streetwalk test of the morally outraged by one of the current affairs mobs for the innocence factor to dissipate. All they’d need to do is acid test Joe Public with the same boogy board and flippers, one with an extra 4.1kg pack of vegetable matter and one without and ask the question- Do you really think an intelligent person wouldn’t have noticed the doubling of weight and thickness, the first time they handled it?
observa,
I’m getting weary [looking in my baby’s eyes – Bob Dylan]. Seriously, this will be my last post on this topic.
I don’t know about your “shoulda been obvious” boogie board theory. Who picked it up off the carousel? Wasn’t she traveling with her brother – maybe he picked it up? Even if she did pick it up, it is usually a pretty stressful time collecting baggage and clearing customs – I don’t know if you’d necessarily notice anything amiss straight away (I’m usually not paying that much attention to my baggage – just mentally rehearsing my spiel in case customs try to get me to pay duty on my latest over-quota electronic goods import 🙂
Anyway, I don’t claim she is innocent. I just don’t know, but it seems there is enough doubt.
I’m not reading 81 comments, but I did do a “find text” search for Don Pacifico. Not found. Yet that old case, which led Palmerston to address the H. of C. for 5 hours about the right of British subjects to expect that “…a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong” is very relevant.
Don Pacifico had his house at Athens wrecked by an angry mob in about 1850, and sought compensation from the Greek government. He claimed that he was a British subject because born in Gibraltar, and even though a later historian (Trelvelyan) described him disdainfully as “a Maltese Jew swindling at Athens”, the British fleet blockaded Greece on his behalf.
Currently there is an Australian held without trial in a prison camp in Cuba and now an Australian imprisoned for 20 years on dubious evidence by the most corrupt country on Earth. Who are we? Institutionally (if one can descend institutionally), we are the direct descendants of the British government on behalf of which Palmerston spoke all those years ago. The outrage against the Corby decision is the outrage of people who instinctively know this. It may not be logical in a postmodern world, but it is who we are. There are many – perhaps most of the voting population – who would be prepared to support vigorous action against Indonesia (and the USA) for the return of our nationals who suffer (by our standards) “injustice and wrong”.
Finally, I suggest it is only a country which is prepared to defend its nationals who get into scrapes abroad that is likely to abandon the imprisonment without charge of foreigners who arrive here. I don’t think we can have it both ways, and I would much prefer to see a more Palmerstonian attitude than a continued drift towards a South American one.
Was Corby guilty as charged or stiched up? I have no idea.
I hope the reason John Howard is providing 2 QCs available for her defence, gratis, is because he has got some information the rest of us haven’t that a miscarriage of justice has been carried out.
I hope the reason isn’t because Corby is white, has blonde hair and big tits and hence has elicited a huge amount of sympathy in punter land.
Here’s a question for all of you non-drug smugglers. Suppose you picked up your boogie board bag in Bali and found it suspiciously heavy. You open it up and find a big bag of drugs. Would you go to the nearest Indonesian policeman or customs official and say “look what I found?”. If you did, you’d better hope they don’t think you’re a drug smuggler who has lost his nerve and is making up a story to get out of a sticky situation.
Correction: Palmerston was of course addressing the H. of L., not the H. of C.
â€?…a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrongâ€?
Egads Gordon, as if joining COWs to bring freedom, democracy and rule of law to a bunch of heathens is not hard enough these days, you bring up unilaterally whacking fuzzy wuzzys to preserve the honour of British maidens. Can I suggest a quiet whiskey and soda while you you think about the consequences for Empire here? What about a quick whip around at the Club to fund a feasibility study by those Zionist chaps, as to the prospects of a quiet rescue mission for our damsel in distress? Could even get the Ghurkas involved.
I expect an upright Anglo-Saxon refusal to besmirch our Aussie Flag beach towels with filthy Kuta sand and a righteous determination to accept massages only above the waist will express our outrage when appeals to British justice fail.
Interesting thread. I don’t know whether Corby is innocent or guilty but I can say that there is nothing wrong with Balinese ganja, certainly not that you’d want to pay 10 times more for Oz weed. Second I wish people would stop referring to marijuana as a narcotic, I know the Indonesians do but this is just a stupidity. Thirdly the judge has never acquitted anyone basically because this is an appeal, Corby had already been found guilty by the investigating magistrate and – finally why has no-one offered to stitch up the three judges with a few bags of weed in their briefcases? Reckon that would lead to a round of law reform pretty quick.
If you were a little more attentive, Dave, you would know that if this had happened to Observa Jr., ‘he would have incredulously opened it there and then in front of his mates. His and their shock at the contents would have been obvious to all gathered and they would have called the authorities.’
“I have always voted Liberal but never again! ……….. how this govt can let a person stay one day in prison and be convicted by a kangaroo court is beyond most fair thinking Australians… Howard and your cronies, you will never live this one down..â€?
I sense a deja vu opportunity here for the ALP Katz with this depth of feeling about. Bring the boys home from the ME Beazer, as we’ve got a pressing need for them…… ‘The Beazer Not the Appeaser’ election campaign.
Yeah James, but not before he’d picked it up and gone ‘Hang on a bit, this looks like mine but it can’t be????? What the f…???’ No doubt MSM are going to start to go over Corby’s position with a fine tooth comb from here on. They’ll also interview her in prison again over some puzzling questions that need addressing.
>>David, I’m not sure if this is meant in any way as a response to my query above, but I was hoping for something a little more enlightening. At face value, if the main difference between ‘Roman’ law and ours is that prosecuters have a lighter burden of poof, that would seem less fair. Is there some element of the ‘Roman’ system that compensates for this?>>
Mu understanding is that the Roman Law countries apply a much tougher test at the arraignment stage than do Common Law countries.
In theory at least, before you land in the dock in France or other Roman Law countries the prosecution has ALREADY proven the case on the balance of probabilities – a tougher test than the “prima facie” standard applied in Common Law countries – to the satisfaction of an investigatring magistrate.
Observa, something poetic here.
“He who lives by the dog whistle shall die by the dog whistle.”
It’ll be interesting to see whether this issue achieves traction and attains longevity as a political issue.
you don,t take rise to china i can,t believe the drugs were meant for bali i think they missed coming off in Aust.As for Schapelle i don,t know if she is guilty or not but the decision would have been the same in Aust.her intire defence woul have een inadmissible in Aust.Concerning the ruling same result in an Aust. court Possesion 9/10 of the law
Yeah Katz, but with a name like yours I’d be more than a bit concerned about a dog-whistling competition to win over the swinging voter.
nice one katz. im thinking Paulene H, wrapped in aussie flag beach towel, re-enacting the D-day landing on Bali’s beaches, sometime before the next qld election. for whatever is left of one nation, the Corby factor could easily swing 8-10% of the vote in QLD alone.
The Big Tits Fallacy.
– A certain physiognomy attracts greater attention than others.
– This physiognomy is one of those more attractive.
– Therefore the attention in this case is ill-considered.
Like all fallacies it confuses all of us from time to time.
Simply put, the BT Fallacy says that unless all cases are always treated equally I won’t entertain any of them.
And I absolutely won’t entertain an issue where the mob is overstating its case. Especially not when I might offend my very good friend Indonesia. It was OK for Australia to criticise the very heart of the Indonesian national project of unifying its 13,000 islands, by participating in the mission to East Timor, but to criticise a single drugs case would be a bridge too far.
Thanks, Ian. That link furnished by Dave was handy too. Professor Lindsey was on Media Watch last night (where I got the distinct impression that Liz Jackson has been reading wbb’s blog).
I found helpful information in Wikipadia under ‘Civil law’, ‘inquisitorial’, and ‘presumption of innocence’. In this last entry, scroll down to ‘ Differences between legal systems’.
The upshot is it that it’s a complete furphy that civil law subscribes to ‘presumption of guilt’. I got that from my Modern History teacher, and I though I never quite believed it, I never got around to sorting it out either. I wonder if Chanel 9 journalists and Alan Jones had the same Modern History teacher.
Anyway, it seems that the furphy arises, as Ian says, from the fact that the investigating magistrate makes the indictment on the balance of probabilities. But the actual trial is conducted by a different judge, in an adversarial manner, and there is a presumption of innocence.
Italics stuffed up and hyperlinks not working in the above. Looking forward to the return of Comment Preview. Meanwhile here’s the most useful link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence
This whole issue has ceased to be discussed rationally and much of what is said is the product of mass hysteria. What I find curious is that Australians are so upset, outraged and offended by the Corby case, but are perfectly willing to leave David Hicks to rot in a US prison for four years without charges even being laid. Whether or not Corby is innocent or quilty, she got a trial and one that was reasonably fair. The same can’t be said as regards David Hicks. And yet, the US has the capacity to locate whatever evidence it needs and run a long, comprehensive trial.
I wonder, will the Australian government now provide a couple of QCs for David Hicks? I doubt it. It would be better politically for the Australian government to join the US in the torturer’s chamber.
Hang on?! I’ve got a solution for the government in how it can deal with Corby without spending a cent… ‘Terrorist!’ One word is all it takes.