Australian agencies criticised over terrorism case
Updated
Australia's terrorism laws are expected to be reviewed after an inquiry into the arrest in Australia last year of an Indian doctor who was working in the north eastern state of Queensland. An independent Inquiry found Doctor Mohamed Haneef should never have been arrested and charged over alleged links to a bomb plot in Britain.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Robert McClelland, Australia's Attorney General;
Ross Ray Q.C., president Law Council of Australia; Professor George Williams, terrorism law expert, University of New South Wales
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MOTTRAM: Incompetence and equivocation, mystifying actions by a minister and evidence overlooked, poor co-ordination. The report into the case of Dr Mohamed Haneef is strongly critical of the handling of the case, and specifically of decisions made by Australia's then Immigration Minister, senior intelligence and federal police figures and other bureaucrats involved. In releasing the report by former Supreme Court judge John Clarke QC, Australia's Attorney General Robert McClelland agreed it was serious.
MCCLELLAND: These situations are totally unacceptable under our system of government. They should not have occurred.
MOTTRAM: But the government will not be seeking resignations from those responsible, instead opting to accept 10 recommendations, and adding one measure of its own, that will include more comprehensive oversight of terrorism laws and of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The case has tested Australia's terror laws. Dr Haneef was arrested last July in a highly charged climate of fear of terrorism. He was presumed linked to a terror cell because his two second cousins had just carried out bombings in the UK and the doctor had, a year prior, given his pre-paid mobile phone to one of them. The Clarke inquiry finds though that not only was there no intelligence to support fear of an attack in Australia, there was also no evidence to justify arresting and charging Dr Haneef. The case collapsed, leaving an innocent man's reputation in tatters. But still the Australian Federal Police, or AFP, spent millions of dollars continuing to investigate Dr Haneef, up until August this year.
The Law Council of Australia, representing the country's legal profession says the inquiry's recommendations should lead to comprehensive oversight of terror laws and relevant agencies. The Council's president is Ross Ray QC:
RAY: It will be dealt with by way of the creation of a national security legislation monitor and also the introduction of the conduct of the AFP being subject to parliamentary joint committees on law enforcement, the joint committee on intelligence and security and also to introduce the jurisdiction of the inspector general of intelligence and security. And in each of those ways the AFP will be subject to scrutiny and if one then combines that with the government's response to known criticisms of the existing legislation, you would hope that a responsible government would simply move in the right direction.
MOTTRAM: Mr Ray also wants the government to review the decision by then Immigration minister Kevin Andrews to cancel Dr Haneef's visa. The Clarke review described it as mystifying. Mr Ray says it undermined the judiciary. One of Australia's top legal academics, Professor George Williams, is concerned about that decision too, but is more critical overall on an initial reading of the report.
WILLIAMS: On the one hand Clarke does find that serious mistakes were made, there were mystifying decisions, that areas of the law could lead to judicial and other errors and that all of this could occur when he also recognised that people were doing their best to do their job well. Yet despite that we don't have recommendations that will fix the law, to fix the practices to ensure that this does not happen again.
MOTTRAM: Politicisation?
WILLIAMS: The report doesn't get to the heart of I think why some decisions were reached. The fact that Kevin Andrews' decision is described as mystifying on the one hand and on the other there being no conspiracy really leaves open the question of why was it made. We're really left guessing as to what has occurred. I think what this report does reveal very strongly is that the laws leave open a vast amount of discretion for ministers for officials and others, that discretion in some cases can lead to uncapped periods of detention. In Dr Haneef's case it was many days detention beyond even what a murder suspect may have been subjected to and unfortunately this is not a report that has concrete recommendations that will mean that that discretion is lessened and the potential for politicisation is limited.
MOTTRAM: As for Doctor Haneef, he's working in general practice in Dubai and his lawyers are working on a compensation claim.
