The Sunday Muse # 49

the risk was enormous
she climbed over the mountains
at night
with her two young children
to escape the crippling regime
where freedom of speech was curtailed
where thoughts were censored
where the walls had ears
to get to the country of freedom
far far away
at the bottom of the world

but just lately
a chilling feeling of deja vu
drifted across her psyche
a goose had crossed over her grave






















it was just possible
her dangerous mountain escape
was for nothing

Ernst Willheim

ANU College of Law Research Seminar

Australians reading about secret trials in foreign countries tend to content themselves in the belief that in Australia we have an open court system and an independent judiciary. After all, freedom of speech, the rule of law and an open and independent court system are basic bulwarks of our democracy. Aren’t they?

In this talk Ernst Willheim will challenge that comfortable assumption drawing on the extraordinary prosecution of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery and Witness K for disclosure of the illegal bugging of the Timor Leste cabinet by Australia’s intelligence agency ASIS in the course of bilateral boundary negotiations between Australia and Indonesia. Another Australian intelligence agency ASIO later raided Collaery’s legal office and seized confidential legal advice to his client Timor Leste. The proceedings are being shielded from public scrutiny. Ernst will discuss the importance of openness in judicial proceedings and the importance of the constitutional principle of freedom of political communication in relation to disclosure of wrongful conduct by public authorities.

Speakers

• Ernst Willheim »