A HIGH COURT CHALLENGE
 
Tomorrow I will not be here. I will be in Magistrate’s Court facing five criminal charges arising out of what I believe, as do many others, is a bad law.
 
A good law turned bad. A law I hope to help get changed. A law that seems to me to protect criminals and not victims. A law that suppresses the names of serial rapists and child sex offenders. Some of the worst, recidivist, offenders in this country. Sex offenders who the judges even admit are still a risk to the community as they sign court orders that hide their identities.
 
I don’t do this lightly. I want to change the constitution to preserve open courts in this state. It is vital to justice being seen to be done. This government seems hell bent on changing laws to make our courts even more secret. To make it harder for the media to report on who is getting their names suppressed and why.
 
As I have said Melbourne has become the Suppression Capital of Australia.
 
The five charges against me relate to alleged breaches of County Court suppression orders back in May and June 2008 and at a Name Them and Shame Them protest rally I held on the steps of Parliament House.
 
 That day several thousand people shouted the names of two notorious sex offenders. The DPP decided to charge only one. Me.
 
One police officer told me  that the Hinch ‘hot potato’ had gone from the Police up to the DPP before being sent back to the Police Commissioner’s Office and then to the Sexual Crimes Squad. As if they haven’t got more important things to do.
 
He also said that the decision to make it a Magistrate’s Court issue was because ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are) wanted to keep it ‘low key’. Wishful thinking.
 
As I said this law involving  Extended Supervision Orders is a mad, bad law. Just how crazy was demonstrated a few weeks ago when a child rapist disappeared from his supervised home outside Ararat Jail.
 
The Herald Sun could not run his photo to alert the public or they’d be in contempt of court. In the following days the suppression order was lifted, the man was caught, the ban was re-instated.  Noddyland.
 
What isn’t Noddyland is that if convicted on those five charges I face maximum penalties of up to $60,000  in fines and five years jail.
 
This law was meant to protect people not hide the identity of child rapists. It is dangerously, fatally flawed. And it must be repealed or amended. The community not only deserves it. We should demand it because you, the public, has a right to know.
 
That is why my barrister, Geoff Slater, has advised the Attorney General, Mr. Hulls, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Jeremy Rapke, who seems to be taking a personal interest in this case, that we intend to immediately apply to the High Court to be heard on a number of constitutional issues including  the freedom of speech.
 
I ask again: Who’s looking after the children?
 
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010