Posts Tagged proceedings
Immigration asks to hear from man who aided Gaddafi
Posted by Metro in Uncategorized on March 1, 2012
An Ontario security contractor who helped members of the Gaddafi family flee Libya last year says he has been summoned by immigration authorities to explain why he should be allowed to remain in Canada.
Gary Peters, president of Can/Aust Security and Investigations International Inc., said Monday he received a letter from the Canada Border Services Agency ordering him to appear at its office in Mississauga, Ont., on Feb. 28.
“I’ve got to prove that I’m still allowed to stay here,” said mr. Peters, a citizen of Australia who has landed immigrant status in Canada. The letter sent by the CBSA warned he would be arrested if he did not show up, he said.
The letter said the interview was required to assess whether he was admissible to Canada. under federal immigration law, the CBSA can begin inadmissibility proceedings against a non-Canadian suspected of involvement in serious criminality, terrorism or war crimes.
“I rang up and I said, ‘Am I in trouble?’ and they just said, ‘We do this routine and through recent events we want to ask some questions.’ That’s all they said.” He said the CBSA referred to “recent events in the media.”
In an interview with the National Post last October, mr. Peters, a former Australian soldier, said he helped dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s sons and daughter escape to Algeria during the Libyan revolution.
He also described how he helped Col. Gaddafi’s son, Saadi, escape to Niger in a convoy.
The RCMP questioned him after his return to Canada, but he does not face any criminal charges. “I’ve broken no laws,” he said.
The United Nations Security Council imposed a travel ban and assets freeze on mr. Gaddafi last February. He is now living in exile in Niger. his father and one of his brothers were later captured and killed in Libya.
Mexican officials visited Canada in January to question mr. Peters about Cynthia Vanier, a Canadian mediator he had accompanied on a 10-day fact-finding mission to wartime Libya that was financed by SNC-Lavalin.
Mexican authorities subsequently charged Ms. Vanier over an alleged plot to smuggle mr. Gaddafi and his family to a home near Puerto Vallarta. But Ms. Vanier’s family and lawyers insist she is innocent and are confident she will be eventually released.
Last week, Stéphane Roy, the SNC-Lavalin executive who had dealt with Ms. Vanier, left the company. a second executive, Riadh Ben Aissa, who oversaw the company’s Libya operations, also resigned.National Postsbell@nationalpost.com
Case Study: The State Of Western Australia -v- AH [2010] WASCA 172
Posted by Metro in Uncategorized on October 2, 2011
History:
EACH of AB and AH were registered in Western Australia as female at the time of their birth. Each applied under the Gender Reassignment Act 2000 (WA) (the Act) to the Gender Reassignment Board of Western Australia (the Board) for the issue of a recognition certificate recognizing the reassignment of their gender from female to male. both applications were refused by the Board. Each of AB and AH appealed to the State Administrative Tribunal (the Tribunal). The Attorney General on behalf of the State of Western Australia intervened in the proceedings before the Tribunal. The appeals were heard together. The Tribunal upheld each appeal and set aside the decision of the Board refusing to grant a recognition certificate and instead directed that recognition certificates be granted to each of AB and AH. The State appeals from the decision of the Tribunal.
Explanation:
As a case moves through the hierarchy of courts the parties change their positions. thus both AB and AH would be appellants at the board and tribunal level but become respondents on appeal. In this matter the appeal was brought by the Attorney General of Western Australia. The state becomes the Appellant.
The Facts:AB
AB manifested a desire to appear as a male during childhood, and in 1997 decided to undergo female to male gender reassignment. however, it was not until 2004 that AB felt comfortable approaching a doctor about it. In March 2004, AB was diagnosed by Dr Russell Date as suffering gender dysphoria. AB commenced testosterone therapy in May 2004, and maintains testosterone levels within a normal male range by the self-administration of regular injections. AB underwent a bilateral mastectomy in July 2005. AB has decided against undergoing a hysterectomy at this time. His reasons for that decision, which were accepted by the Tribunal, were that: he was not conscious of his internal organs and that his internal organs had no bearing on his identity as a male and caused him no distress; he has suffered adverse effects of surgery in the past and wishes to avoid further surgery if possible; he does not wish to undergo surgery that is not medically necessary; and, he cannot afford the time off work that would be necessary for the surgery and recovery.
AB has decided against undergoing a hysterectomy at this time. His reasons for that decision, which were accepted by the Tribunal, were that: he was not conscious of his internal organs and that his internal organs had no bearing on his identity as a male and caused him no distress; he has suffered adverse effects of surgery in the past and wishes to avoid further surgery if possible; he does not wish to undergo surgery that is not medically necessary; and, he cannot afford the time off work that would be necessary for the surgery and recovery.
AB does not presently intend to undergo phalloplasty in order to construct a penis, because he has been advised that the procedure carries substantial risks and has limited prospects of success.
AH
AH was aged 26 at the time of the proceedings before the Tribunal. like AB, he manifested a male orientation during his childhood. In 2006, he was diagnosed by Dr Date as suffering gender dysphoria. He commenced testosterone therapy in September 2006 and, like AB, maintains his testosterone level within the normal male range by the self-administration of injections. In June 2007, AH underwent a bilateral mastectomy.
AH has also decided against undergoing a hysterectomy at present. like AB, he does not wish to undergo surgery which he considers to be unnecessary. AH also has a similar attitude to AB towards undergoing phalloplasty.
The Issue:
The issue on which the appeal was fought was whether the facts established that the first respondents had the ‘gender characteristics’ of a male. The expression ‘gender characteristics’ is defined in the Act to mean ‘the physical characteristics by virtue of which a person is identified as male or female’.
The Reasoning:para. 104:
The critical question is whether, by the reassignment procedure, an applicant has acquired sufficient of the characteristics of the gender to which they wish to be assigned to be identified as a member of that gender.
para. 114:
…save for their clitoral growth, and the impact which testosterone treatment has had upon ovulation and the functioning of their uterus, each otherwise has the external genital appearance and internal reproductive organs which would, according to accepted community standards, be associated with membership of the female sex… the express requirement for at least some genital modification as part of the ‘reassignment procedure’ which is a prerequisite to an application for a recognition certificate reinforces that conclusion.
para. 115:
Each of AB and AH, possess none of the genital and reproductive characteristics of a male, and retain virtually all of the external genital characteristics and internal reproductive organs of a female.
Ratio Decidendi:
The respondents retain a preponderance of female internal and external attributes. such male attributes as they do possess are not sufficient to make them male according to accepted community standards.
Decision:
The respondents cannot obtain recognition as males so long as the preponderance of female attributes they possess significantly outweigh the attributes of the sex they wish to become.
Comment:
The Gender Reassignment Act 2000 (WA) is intended to allow any person who undergoes a process which alters their anatomical features so they can be readily identified as a member of their target sex according to commonly accepted community standards, to have the attained sex legally recognized and to possess thereafter all the rights, privileges and responsibilities associated with individuals belonging to that sex.
In this case the Appeal Justices have stopped short of demanding the removal of female reproductive organs, nor have they demanded full phalloplasty. instead they have opted for a re-balancing process, whereby the attributes of the target sex must significantly outweigh the attributes of the birth sex.
If the applicant is a citizen of the state the Act requires that any medical or surgical procedures carried out on an applicant for gender reassignment must be performed in Western Australia. Phalloplasty (as it is commonly understood) is not available in the Western Australia and the Appeal Court would have been defeating the purposes of the act and the intention of Parliament by demanding it.
There is nothing preventing the respondents from having their female sex organs surgically closed and a scrotum fashioned from the existing labia. The procedure would leave their internal female organs in situ and almost certainly permit a legal change of ‘gender’ status.
Both respondents claim to have experienced adverse effects following previous surgery. Neither appears to have produced any evidence to support that claim.
The case may be appealed to the Supreme Court of Australia. If an appeal is taken on the basis of the ‘phalloplasty’ argument it seems doomed to fail for the reasons discussed above.
Case Study: The State Of Western Australia -v- AH [2010] WASCA 172
Lawyer to gangland figures not guilty of alleged crimes
Posted by Metro in Uncategorized on October 2, 2011
The Crown entered a nolle prosequi on Tuesday on the charges of giving false evidence against Melbourne’s best known female criminal lawyer, Z G-W. in other words, they dropped the charges before trial for want of a reasonable prospect of conviction. The key witness was unable to remember crucial evidence which the Crown obviously figured he would remember. The most interesting fact to emerge from this latest development in the saga is that one of the bits of allegedly false evidence was that spirits had told the solicitor the details of Lewis Caine’s murder. She said that spirits were talking to her. it will be interesting to see what the Legal Practice Board and VCAT make of all this. The solicitor’s VCAT proceeding is a merits review under the VCAT Act, 1998 of the Board’s decision not to renew the solicitor’s practising certificate. Parties to such proceedings may not refuse to answer questions on the basis of the privilege against self-incrimination: ss. 80(3), 105 of the VCAT Act, 1998 which are reproduced below.
I wonder whether anything would stop the Board from calling the solicitor as its own witness and just asking her whether she lied on oath, or, if she were to give evidence, cross-examining her about this. If she did, she would presumably be obliged to say so honestly, though her answers could not be used to prosecute her again, only to inform VCAT in its decision about whether she is a fit and proper person to hold a practising certifiate. in ascertaining whether a person is of good fame and character, or otherwise a fit and proper person to hold a practising certificate, the stipes are entitled to take into account not only criminal convictions but criminal charges, even where the charge resulted in an acquittal: Frugtniet v Board of Examiners [2002] VSC 140, a decision of Justice Pagone. At least that is so at the moment of application for admission which I suspect poses a greater hurdle for applicants than is faced by applicants for the renewal of a practising certificate. not surprisingly, however, any inferences to be drawn from facts of an alleged crime where the charge did not result in a conviction are required to be drawn only after a full and proper investigation: Frugtniet v Board of Examiners [2005] VSC 332 at [20] to [22], a decision of Justice Gillard. His Honour said:
’20 The question does arise, what effect should be given to the fact that an applicant for admission has been charged with criminal offences and acquitted. The appellant’s counsel submitted that full effect must be given to the acquittal and no adverse inference should be drawn against the appellant by reason of the fact that he has been charged with criminal offences concerning dishonesty. Counsel for the Board referred to the text The Victorian Solicitor by Heymanson at page 235, where the author discussed the question in the context of striking a practitioner off the roll. it was submitted that the same principles apply to an application for admission. The learned author notes that it is the offence with which the Court is concerned and not whether the practitioner has been convicted or acquitted. in the case of Re Crick [(1907) 7 SR (NSW) 576], a practitioner who was the Minister of the Crown was found by a Royal Commission to have accepted bribes. he was twice brought to trial for the criminal offence but on each occasion the jury disagreed and the Crown ultimately entered a nolle prosequi. he was struck off the roll for misconduct. in an earlier case of Re Salwey [(1894) 15 LR (NSW) 147], a solicitor was found to have committed fraud in a civil proceeding but was acquitted in a criminal court but nevertheless was struck off the roll for misconduct. A close reading of these cases reveals that the alleged misconduct of the practitioner was investigated and a decision was made by a responsible authority that the practitioner in question was guilty of misconduct. hence, the mere fact of acquittal was not to the point. in those cases there was ample evidence before the Court justifying the removal from the roll.
21 Mr Brett QC also referred to the full Court decision of the Supreme Court of the ACT in Re Del Castillo (1998) 136 ACTR 1. The applicant had stood trial for murder and was acquitted. he revealed that fact to an admission board. The full Court said:
“it is true that the bare facts that a person has been tried for a charge, even a very serious one, and acquitted do not logically tend to the detriment of that person’s character nor of his or her fame. But experience shows that matters are often otherwise. The acquittal may be entirely upon unmeritorious grounds or it may occur in circumstances which nevertheless reveal untoward collateral behaviour on the part of the accused. Particularly, but not only, in cases where serious harm has been wholly or in part caused by an accused person, the court has evidently accepted that there was a reasonable chance that the circumstances were exculpatory (as in the present case) it is likely that, logically or not, some people will consider the fame and/or character of the accused to be defective.”
22 In my opinion the cases establish that an acquittal of a person applying for admission to practise of itself must be given full effect to. However, that would not preclude the Admission Board from fully investigating and considering all the circumstances which may lead to a decision that the applicant is not a fit and proper person. Absent a full and proper investigation in my opinion it is not open to an admission Board to draw any adverse inference against an applicant because he or she has been charged with a criminal offence and is subsequently acquitted. of course, each case must be considered in relation to its particular circumstances.’
Now, those sections from the VCAT Act, 1998:
‘The Tribunal [i.e. VCAT] may give directions… requiring a party to produce a document or provide information… despite any rule of law relating to privilege or the public interest in relation to the production of documents.’
‘(1) A person is not excused from answering a question or producing a document in a proceeding on the ground that the answer or document might tend to incriminate the person.
(2) If the person claims, before answering a question or producing a document, that the answer or document might tend to incriminate them, the answer or document is not admissible in evidence in any criminal proceedings, other than in proceedings in respect of the falsity of the answer.’
See also:
Top Ten Twitter Terms: a conversation to get you Tweeting
Posted by Metro in Uncategorized on March 24, 2011
Sometimes more is more, but often LESS is more.
That’s one of the reasons Twitter is so powerful and popular, and it’s also the reason why this post will include only ten Twitter vocabulary items.
You can find dozens of twitter words and definitions in the wiki Twictionary, and in my earlier article Twitter Basics — Workshop “Cheat Sheet” where I defined 12 common twitter jargon words. This post, however, is designed to provide a deeper understanding of the terms you really need to “work” Twitter and make Twitter “work” for you.
Here’s your “Annotated” Word Introduction to Twitter
1 – TWEET – the 140-character post on Twitter. It is also called a Microblog, i.e. a condensed and concise statement that often links to blog articles. Live Tweeting is practiced at events — both face-to-face and online — where participants contribute an ongoing report of the proceedings. You can even find Live Tweets at events like actual hospital surgeries.
2 – FOLLOW – You follow people to read their tweets — to keep up with the latest news, trends, entertainment, and happenings of friends, celebrities, and knowledgeable people. unlike Facebook where you must be accepted — and where there is a limit to how many friends you can have — you can follow anyone you want to. See previous posts for tips on Whom to Follow.
However, you can block someone from seeing your tweets OR, of course, someone can block you. the difference is that you don’t request permission to follow someone. You just do it. And if you are not a scammer, a robot, or in some other way intrusive, you probably won’t be blocked.
3 – TWITTERSTREAM [or Stream of Tweets] – It you access Twitter via the actual site Twitter.com, then you will see a “stream” of posts from the people you follow. these would be the most recent statements they posted in reverse chronological order, i.e., the newest posts are up at the top. if you select PROFILE from the top menu, you will see your Twitterstream, i.e., what you have posted in reverse chronological order.
This stream of posts is what someone else would see if they searched Twitter for your handle [your Twitter name]. For example, click on twitter.com/sharisax and you will see my twitterstream. if you liked what you saw, then you would follow me by clicking the FOLLOW button below my photo [your photo is also called your avatar].
As stated in the previous post Tips to become a Twitter Pro BEFORE your first post, I suggested that you plan your Twitter strategy before you write your first post: know Why you are on Twitter and what Twitter image you hope to accomplish. your Twitterstream will be How you accomplish that image, i.e., your “personal brand.”
4 – FOLLOWERS [those who read your Tweets] – Influence and/or popularity seems to be measured by how many followers one has. You can find out the 200 most followed Tweeple [a person who Tweets] on a site like Twitaholic.com: as of this writing, celebrity Kevin Smith has 1.7+million followers.
“So what?” that is a common question asked by journalists when any extraordinary statistic is thrown at them. if numbers are your sole objective, there are automatic, robotic means of accruing a slew of followers. my suggestion, however, is that you grow your follower list organically. that means the list of people who follow you develops naturally, i.e., people either follow you because they like reading what you Tweet OR, in many cases, they follow you back automatically when you follow them. [Hint: that is one typical way to gather followers.]
5 – DM or Direct Message – Once you follow someone and he or she follows you back, you may DM the person, e.g. D sharisax [by using a Capital "D" and a space and the person's twitter handle]. This is NOT a Tweet to everyone, but a private text message to one person. Personally, I do not text very often on my cell phone, but I do DM lots of my Twitter friends — and these relationships have grown faster and deeper than others because of the ease of communication. Engagement and building relationships is what the Social Web is all about. more than a few technology/Internet pundits have predicted that Twitter will replace much, if not most, of email in the future. [Who likes to read all the previous messages and other extraneous verbiage on emails.]
6 – RT or ReTweet – This is the action of re-posting someone else’s Tweet with attribution, e.g. RT @sharisax sometimes more is more, and sometimes less is more. [Use the "RT" and then a space and then the "@" sign in front of the person's handle -- all this in front of what they tweeted.] when someone RT’s what you have posted, you feel recognized and appreciated. many people make it a practice of Thanking those who RT them. Of course, once you are so popular that 100′s of people RT you, then you might not have time for much else other than thanking people if you stick to this practice.
All that being said, the practice of RT-ing is one of the reasons that you don’t need to worry about missing much of the good stuff on Twitter. if it truly is “good stuff,” then it is surely likely to be RT’d.
7 – SEARCH.TWITTER.COM – Searching Twitter [now integrated on the Twitter interface] offers “real-time” results, i.e., what people are Tweeting at the moment you input your keywords . . . unless your the terms are obscure, i.e., no one but you is interested. This is one of the best methods for finding people to follow — by inputting topics of interest and finding like-minded people. Read their streams and then follow them if you like what they have to say. You might want to reply or retweet, so they will have an additional incentive to follow you back. And you might even find someone who becomes one of your face-to-face friends. [I have 
]
You can narrow your search through operators like these two examples [complete list]:
news 
—– search contains word “news” and with a negative attitude
“happy hour” near:”san francisco” —– search contains exact phrase “happy hour” and was sent near “san francisco”
8 – Tweetdeck.com – This is the desktop application I use to more fully engage with my followers and topics I follow. I will post a complete article explaining how to download and use this valuable tool.
9 – Tweetchat.com - Twitter can be used for chatting real-time. The way it works is that everyone in the chat is using a certain keyword (called a hashtag) in all their tweets. the applications are then grabbing all the tweets with that hashtag from Twitter and displaying them for the people who are part of the chat. Be careful though because your tweets are also going out to all the people who are following you. [from Answers.com].
Our Social Media for Journalism course will have an Optional LIVE CHAT using Tweetchat in the near future. Stay tuned for details.
10- 101 Twitter Tools for Experts [or to become one]: You’re on your own for this one. Click on a few of the tools that sound interesting and let us know what we should try.
PS I just remembered URL shorteners like bit.ly. most people use a site like bit.ly to reduce the number of characters in the URL. This site also has functionality to track your shortened URLs to report on how many times people click on them.
PPS How could I forget to define Hashtags? Tweeters use the number symbol # in front of a word [e.g., #journ65] to identify a topic that makes it easy for people to (a) search for and (b) contribute to the discussion — whether the discussion is happening real time or just “over” time. One example of a real time hashtag discussion would be live tweeting during a webinar. the hashtag could be as simple as the name of the moderator; George Kao happens to be one of my mentors, and when he holds one of his Q&A sessions, I would tweet using the @georgekao hashtag, so people can follow the discussion and add to it. For my Social Media for Journalist course, I am using #journ65 to aggregate all the tweets of interest to the students, which makes them all very easy to find when they search twitter OR add the #journ65 column to their Tweetdeck.
Lawyers take up case of boat orphan
Posted by Metro in Uncategorized on March 7, 2011
AAP
A nine-year-old boy orphaned in the Christmas Island boat disaster should be removed from detention and returned into the care of his relatives in Sydney, human rights lawyers will tell a court on Friday.
Human rights advocate George Newhouse is working with a team of lawyers, including former Federal Court judge Ron Merkel, QC, in Melbourne and Sydney ahead of the action which will be launched in the Federal Court.
The action will be against Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, the Department of Immigration or both.
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“There’ll be an action against them, certainly against the minister because he is the guardian of the child,” Mr Newhouse told AAP from the home of the boy’s relatives at Bankstown, in Sydney’s west, on Thursday.
“Lawyers expect to be in the position to commence proceedings at the court opening tomorrow morning (Friday).”
The team will ask the court that Seena, from Iran, be psychologically assessed and returned to his aunt, Zahida Alghban, in Bankstown.
Seena was one of 22 survivors from the asylum-seeker vessel SIEV 221 that broke up off Christmas Island on December 15 with the loss of up to 50 lives.
The boy was flown to Sydney this week to attend funerals for a number of those who died, including his father.
The body of his mother has not been found.
In addition to the Federal court action, Sydney barrister Stephen Blanks has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission over the return of Seena to detention.
Mr Blanks says the action constitutes a breach of Australia’s obligations under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.
Seena’s aunt, his only Australian-based relative, met the child this week.
His cousin Jaffar Alghban told AAP that his family hoped to take care of him.
“We really want to support him, we want to do everything for him,” he said.
“We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he forgets about his past.”
Seena was returned with 21 other refugees to Christmas Island on Thursday, despite calls for him to be allowed to remain in Sydney.
Mr Newhouse said the case would get a lot of public support.
“Nobody likes to predict the outcome of litigation,” he said.
“However, there are mothers and fathers around the country whose hearts go out to an orphan child who is being returned to detention on a remote island without appropriate care and medical attention.
“It’s a scandalous situation that I would be hoping a court would reverse.”
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said on Thursday he expected to make a decision “very quickly” on the fate of Seena and was waiting for a psychological assessment.
“As I stress, I want to see him released into the community with the appropriate psychological care and we are in the process of doing that,” he told reporters.
