Media

'Enhancing Press Freedom through Greater Privacy Law: A UK Perspective on an Australian Privacy Tort' by Paul Wragg in (2014) 36(4) Sydney Law Review comments 

In light of previous inquiries identifying areas of concern in Australia’s privacy law provisions, the Australian Law Reform Commission (‘ALRC’) recently devised a new tort that, if implemented, would better protect individuals from serious invasions of privacy. Although the tort was designed principally with new technologies in mind, there has been vociferous concern that such a tort might unduly inhibit press freedom. This response is familiar to United Kingdom (‘UK’) commentators who have seen the press, in particular, react similarly to common law developments in privacy law. Yet that experience has not been entirely unfavourable to the UK press; indeed, the jurisprudence discloses a generous treatment of the term ‘public interest’, which has kept interference with press activity to a minimum. In light of the reference to press freedom within the ALRC’s proposed tort, and given the absence of an express constitutional provision protecting Australian press speech, this article argues that the UK experience shows how, counterintuitively, the ALRC’s proposed tort could actually enhance, rather than diminish, press freedom protection in Australia.

NSA

'Nothing to Fear or Nowhere to Hide: Competing Visions of the NSA's 215 Program' by Susan Freiwald in (2014) 12(2) Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law comments 

Despite Intelligence Community leaders’ assurances, the detailed knowledge of the NSA metadata program (the 215 program) that flowed from the Snowden revelations did not assuage concerns about the program. Three groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, brought immediate legal challenges with mixed results in the lower courts. The conflict, in the courts, Congress, and the press, has revealed that the proponents and opponents of Section 215 view the program in diametrically opposed ways. Program proponents see a vital intelligence program operating within legal limits, which has suffered a few compliance issues that were remedied by a well-functioning oversight regime. Program opponents see the same program as unauthorized and unconstitutional, yielding minimal benefits, and subject to significant abuses and insufficient oversight. Part of the disjunction reflects differing interpretations of the law, but much of it stems from a deep-seated lack of trust. For example, surveillance proponents tend to view civil libertarian activists as motivated by ideology and not amenable to persuasion by facts or reason. They find frustrating the lack of credit they get for their own efforts to protect civil liberties. Civil libertarian activists regard secret surveillance as a request that they merely “trust the government.” They cite current and historical abuses of the surveillance power in this country and elsewhere as reason to refuse to do so. This paper discusses how each side’s lack of trust leads it to use the same words to mean entirely different things.

This essay proceeds in the following manner. Part I provides a brief overview of the 215 program. Part II compares the proponents’ cost-versus-benefit calculations to opponents’ calculations. Part III considers how differently each group assesses the legality of the 215 program, considering both statutory authorization and the relevant constitutional provisions. Part IV compares each side’s understanding of what it means to abuse the surveillance power, which depends crucially on the issues raised in the prior Parts. Because program opponents view it as ineffective and illegal, its very operation abuses civil liberties. Program proponents perceive no abuses when agents engage in legally authorized and justified surveillance. This essay concludes that whatever happens to the 215 program will not likely resolve the manner in which the program’s proponents and opponents talk past each other. Yet use of a common language could increase understanding, and even trust, and it would surely enhance opportunities for constructive engagement among the parties themselves and the greater public.

Negligence

'High Court Negligence Cases 2000–10' by Pam Stewart and Anita Stuhmcke in (2014) 36(4) Sydney Law Review reports a study of High Court negligence decisions from 2000 to 2010.

The research establishes that the common law of negligence has been evolving toward the imposition of greater personal responsibility on plaintiffs in most circumstances, but especially in recreational activity cases. Further, the study reveals a substantial level of protection for public authority defendants at common law, challenging the assumptions that underpinned the significant statutory protections that were enacted in Australian jurisdictions from 2002 onwards. The data analysis therefore corroborates previous work of Australian tort law scholars and contradicts the claims made by policymakers at the start of the 21st century about the urgent need for tort law reform. Given that there has not been an empirical study of 21st century High Court negligence decisions to date, the study provides a foundation for future assessment of the effect of Australian tort law reform legislation.  

Constitutions, Confusion and Vexation

'Written Constitutions and the Politics of Recognition: Symbolism and Substance' by Dylan Lino comments

Written constitutions are a major site of contestation in the political struggles by marginalised groups to have their identities respected within public institutions – the ‘politics of recognition’, in Charles Taylor’s influential coinage. I argue in this paper that, in struggles over recognition, two dimensions of written constitutions are pertinent. The first – the constitutional dimension, which is the primary role of written constitutions – is to distribute and limit the most fundamental aspects of public power within the state. Accordingly, written constitutions may be amended to redistribute public power in a way that better respects a given group’s identity. A second element of written constitutions – a non-constitutional, symbolic dimension – is their status as cultural symbols of the polities to which they are attached. Constitutional amendments recognising identity groups may thus seek to render these symbols more inclusive and representative of the polity overall.

The politics of constitutional recognition have played out in recent years in Australia in relation to the nation’s Indigenous peoples, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Though many proposals for constitutionally recognising Indigenous peoples have been controversial, one sort of reform has garnered significant mainstream political support. This kind of reform entails the insertion of explicit but legally ineffectual mentions of Indigenous peoples within either a preamble or discrete section of the constitutional text. Several amendments along these lines have already been made to constitutions at the State level, and there will likely be a similar proposal put forward at the national level within the next few years.

Though these reforms take place within written constitutions, there is nothing particularly constitutional about them. Having no effect on the distribution of public power within the Australian legal order, such reforms focus entirely on the non-constitutional symbolic function of written constitutions. In this paper, I argue that attending to the expressive dimension of written constitutions should not be discarded from the politics of recognition: symbolic recognition in written constitutions can have salutary effects for those being recognised. However, as the Australian example shows, constitutional recognition that is purely symbolic can be deficient in two major ways. First, denying such forms of recognition any substantive constitutional function can have negative symbolic effects in itself. Second, the pursuit of wholly symbolic recognition in written constitutions often neglects valid grievances about how power is wielded by the state over the group in question. For both problems, the solution is pursuing substantive forms of constitutional recognition.

In Markan v Bar Association of Queensland (No 3) [2014] QSC 225 the Supreme Court has engaged with a vexatious litigant. The Court states 

 This is the third action Mr Markan has brought against the Bar Association of Queensland. He has also, out of those proceedings, brought three appeals to the Court of Appeal and two applications to the High Court for special leave to appeal. He has also brought proceedings against the Crime and Misconduct Commission (as it was formerly named) and the Queensland Police Service. In the CMC action he also, again, brought an appeal in the Court of Appeal. 

BAQ says all these proceedings involve unmeritorious, fanciful or ridiculous claims which, despite dismissal by judges at first instance and in appeal courts, are maintained by Mr Markan – to the point, BAQ argues, that he should be made the subject of a vexatious proceedings order under the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2005 (Qld). If an order under the VPA is not made then BAQ seeks, in the alternative, an order striking out his claim and statement of claim in this action. 

Mr Markan cross-applies. He seeks orders that BAQ should be declared the vexatious person, and that BAQ’s application to strike out his claim and statement of claim should, itself, be struck out. He also cross-applies for an order that the Court reject BAQ’s application for the vexatious order against him; and, for the selection of a “...neutral, independent and impartial arbitrator to preside over the Court hearing”. (Unless otherwise indicated, words and phrases in italics are taken from Mr Markan’s court documents and submissions.) 

Where it began: Mr Markan is, in his view, wrongly convicted of a criminal offence 

n late 2008 Mr Markan was convicted by a jury in the District Court of one count of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, with a parole date fixed after two years. He was alleged to have assaulted a fellow employee at a resort where they both worked on South Stradbroke Island, breaking his left arm. 

Mr Markan represented himself at trial. He did not give or call evidence. His case, which he put to the complainant in cross-examination, was that the complainant was the aggressor and that Mr Markan had not caused him any physical injury except to his hands and arms. Although Mr Markan had told investigating police that he had acted in self defence, and although the judge presiding at his trial had warned Mr Markan that unless he gave evidence there would be no evidence before the jury on that issue, he nevertheless chose not to give evidence himself. 

After the trial Mr Markan retained solicitors who engaged Mr Tim Carmody SC (as the present Chief Justice then was) and Mr Douglas Wilson of counsel to advise in relation to, and represent him in, an appeal. An appeal against conviction only was commenced. It was heard on 27 March 2009 and dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 1 May 2009. 

Mr Markan then retained different solicitors who engaged Mr Paul Smith of counsel (as his Honour then was) to advise in relation to a special leave application which was filed, but dismissed by the High Court on 4 November 2012. 

The application for special leave contained six grounds of appeal. The first was that there was an irregularity in the selection of the trial judge who had previously been the Director of Public Prosecutions. The High Court, after noting that the Court of Appeal had not been asked to address that question, observed that “... no claim of bias could succeed unless it were demonstrated that the trial judge had been personally involved in the decision to proceed against the applicant. This has not been demonstrated”. 

The second ground alleged procedural unfairness at the trial – that the trial judge had refused to have the complainant recalled so that a medical witness could examine him. Again, the High Court noted, the matter did not appear to have been taken up in the Court of Appeal but, in any event, Mr Markan had not demonstrated error in the trial judge’s discretionary decision on the point. 

The third ground involved a complaint by Mr Markan that he was wrongly prevented from asking an investigating police officer why the officer did not ask the complainant about a supposed discrepancy between the complainant’s claim that he had been hit many times on the head, and the lack of any signs of this during medical examination. Mr Markan also complained that the trial judge had wrongly refused to allow a question as to why the police officer had concluded that Mr Markan was not acting in self-defence. Again, the High Court observed that Mr Markan had not demonstrated error in the Court of Appeal’s failure to uphold those complaints – the first question was a matter for medical evidence, and the second involved an attempt to seek an opinion on the matter not the subject of expert evidence. 

The fourth ground related to the trial judge’s summing up, and errors alleged to have occurred in it. Mr Markan complained that the Court of Appeal had not dealt with the matter but, as the High Court observed, it did not appear that it had been asked to do so. In any event, as the High Court went on to observe, the complaints (which focused upon an alleged absence of medical evidence about the complainant having head injuries) were pointless; there was clear evidence that the complainant suffered a broken arm at the hands of Mr Markan, and that was sufficient so as to establish grievous bodily harm; and, Mr Markan did not himself give evidence to contradict the complainant’s evidence about being hit on the head. 

The fifth ground related to a reference by the complainant, while testifying, to Mr Markan adventuring into cyber-crime. There was some focus, in the course of the trial, on whether this was a reference to a prior criminal conviction of Mr Markan. Later, in the presence of the jury, the witness withdrew any suggestion of any previous conviction of Mr Markan for cyber-crime. 

The sixth ground involved a submission that the conviction was based on fabricated evidence – in particular, the complainant’s claim to have been hit on the head and the leg. Mr Markan complained that the Court of Appeal had not dealt with those points but, again, the High Court was not dissuaded that it had been asked to do so, and said: “What the jury made of the evidence and the complainant’s credibility was a matter for them”. 

It is compelling, from a reading of the decisions of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, that Mr Markan made a number of wide-ranging complaints to both about his criminal trial but that in each instance the appeal court concluded that they were immaterial, were not the product of any error by the presiding trial judge, and, insofar as the trial could be said to have been conducted in a way disadvantageous to Mr Markan, that was the sole product of decisions he made himself – in particular, the decision not to give evidence – in circumstances where he had been fully and fairly informed of his choices, and the consequences of them, by the trial judge. 

Mr Markan complains about his lawyers 

Mr Markan complained to the Legal Services Commission about the conduct of his solicitors and counsel in both appeals. The Commissioner referred his complaints about the barristers to BAQ for investigation, report and recommendation. In April 2012 BAQ delivered two reports to the Commissioner in which it concluded that neither Mr Carmody SC and Mr Wilson in the Court of Appeal, nor Mr Smith in the High Court, were guilty of any misconduct. Mr Markan’s principal complaint had been that his barristers did not run points which he considered to be important. Some of them were, in fact, advanced on his special leave application and found not to have merit. In respect of all the others, BAQ’s report concluded that any failure by the barristers to follow Mr Markan’s instructions was the legitimate product of their own forensic judgment, consistent with applicable rules of conduct and their overriding duty to the court. 

Mr Markan did not sue his solicitors or barristers. Rather, he commenced the various actions against BAQ, and the Police Commissioner and the CMC, which are now said to be vexatious. Mr Markan’s first action (BS928/13) and the appeals in it. 

In his first proceeding, begun in February 2013, Mr Markan pleads that arising out of the actions of the Legal Services Commissioner and BAQ in investigating his complaints about his barristers (of which he had notice) and his acceptance of that procedure, there was a contract between him and BAQ which the Association breached by failing to find in his favour – i.e., by not making findings of misconduct by the barristers. 

Mr Markan sued BAQ for $10,000,000.13, alleging that it is an “... arrogant mafia organisation operating to subvert the Government and community institutions”, and has been involved in a “... fragrant contempt of laws in this country”, which involved “... unlawful act [sic] indicating gross malice and ill will ... affecting the whole society, eroding public confidence in the operation of justice system [sic]”. 

The damages are calculated under six heads – compensatory, consequential, aggregated, exemplary, parasistic [sic] and restitution damages – with an amount of $1,666,666.683333 for each head. 

BAQ applied to have the statement of claim struck out. After a hearing before Dalton J on 5 March 2013, Mr Markan filed an amended claim and statement of claim. It was, arguably, more extreme and less coherent. In it, he: “...demands that the Defendant makes the public apology for the harm and distress caused utilizing all major public media available in a clear and highly visible manner”; alleges BAQ has been involved in criminal conduct; and, demands that “... people associated with the Bar Association of Queensland ... be sent to re-education facilities where they will be subjected to hard physical labour to instill [sic] in them the respect to other people in the community”. 

In the statement of claim there is an apparent attempt to improve the pleading relating to the alleged breach, with an allegation that BAQ failed to provide “... the service of ‘INVESTIGATION’ in honest, fair and reasonable manner according to law”. 

The new claim also seeks a declaration that BAQ is a “... criminal organisation and to order its dissolution”. 

Mr Markan also applied, separately, for orders that a “... neutral independent and impartial arbiter ... preside over the court hearing this case”. Atkinson J heard that application on 17 April 2013. Mr Markan asked her Honour to disqualify herself. She refused. A week later, on 24 April 2013, she heard BAQ’s renewed application to strike out the proceedings, and Mr Markan’s oral application for a stay of her decision not to disqualify herself. On 7 June 2013 she made orders striking out the claim and statement of claim. In her reasons Atkinson J concluded that there was no basis in fact or law for the plaintiff’s claims sufficient to maintain his case. She observed that “... portions of the claim and statement of claim and amended statement of claim merely make scandalous accusations of criminal or other serious misconduct without pleading any material facts which could be said to support such allegations”; and, “... to allow such pleadings to continue would be an abuse of process of the court”; and, that the claims made by Mr Markan contained “... numerous baseless and scandalous allegations of dishonest conduct”. 

Between the first and second hearings before Atkinson J Mr Markan had appealed to the Court of Appeal, and sought a stay pending the determination of that appeal. He also appealed the decision striking out his claim and statement of claim. Both appeals were heard together on 8 October 2013. Both were dismissed on 13 December 2013. 

The Court, in a joint judgment, concluded that the pleadings, even after amendment, did not disclose any reasonable cause of action. 

Mr Markan filed two applications for special leave to appeal against both orders made by the Court of Appeal. In them he described the conduct of Atkinson J, and the Court of Appeal judges, as “... like mafia dons protecting their friends and to pervert or obstruct Justice and the Rule of Law”. The applications were dismissed on 13 May 2014, Bell and Gageler JJ observing that there was no error in the decision of Atkinson J not to recuse herself, and that her assessment that the amended statement of claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action was unimpeachable. 

Mr Markan’s second action (BS6041/13) and the appeals in it 

Mr Markan had commenced the first action in February 2013. In early June 2013 he sent BAQ what purported to be an invoice for $11,000,000.13 “... for the service provided by Peter Markan concerning the redemption of Bar Association of Qld”. It purports to be a detailed invoice with particulars – e.g., Mr Markan purports to “charge” BAQ $2,000 per minute for 1,500 minutes for work associated with an attendance in court before Atkinson J on 24 April 2013, for a total cost of $3,000,000. 

Less than a month later he began a new action claiming, again, that BAQ make a public apology for public distress caused to him; that anyone associated with BAQ be sent to re-education facilities and subjected to hard labour; and that he be paid $11,000,000.13 for services by which Mr Markan had provided BAQ with “... the service of ‘public ridicule’ and ‘public humiliation’”. 

The statement of claim is couched in quite conversational terms – e.g., “... queensland [sic] barristers enjoy being abused, cursed and swore at because they get sexual satisfaction from it. Although it sounded to me weird, kinky and depraved I kept it to myself because you do not say such things to clients”. 

The prayer in the statement of claim seeks payment of the invoice for $11,000,000.13 “exactly and approximately”. As to interest it alleges that Mr Markan is “ ... in the process of creating the algorithm for the calculation of the interest on the money due. However initial calculation, looking at the array of the derivative of the variance between parameters and arguments of the difference between queensland barristers [sic] stupidity and their arrogance, shows values unbelievably huge and requires further testing”. 

BAQ applied to strike out the claimant’s statement of claim. Mr Markan cross-applied for the selection of a “... neutral, independent and impartial arbiter to preside over the court hearing this case”; to strike out BAQ’s application; and, for a grant of “... LEGAL IMMUNITY for anything done or said in court by the plaintiff”. 

The applications were heard by Fryberg J on 25 and 26 July 2013. Again, Mr Markan asked the judge to recuse himself. That was refused. Mr Markan then sought to “... exercise common law rights and human rights” and informed the Court that he was “refusing to participate in this proceeding”. In his absence Fryberg J determined all the applications and, as BAQ requested, struck out the action. He observed that the statement of claim “... contains no cause of action known to law. The document is, in short, fanciful. The claim is unsustainable and consequently should not be allowed to proceed”. 

Mr Markan filed a notice of appeal in early August 2013, relying on grounds almost identical to those put forward in his earlier appeal against the orders of Atkinson J. The appeal came on for hearing on 18 February 2014. Mr Markan asked each of the judges (McMurdo P, Muir JA and Mullins J) to recuse themselves. They refused. Their decision was handed down on 28 February 2014.[16] Mr Markan’s claims for payment of his invoice were variously described as “patently ridiculous” (McMurdo P), “frivolous, vexatious and scandalous” (Muir JA) and “misguided” (Mullins J). 

Mr Markan has sought special leave in the High Court to appeal against those orders. His application alleges that the decision is “deeply offensive” and makes an unparticularised allegation that one of the appeal court judges was “... receiving financial benefit from the other party before the court”. The Queensland Supreme Court is described as “... the hub of racism”. The application is yet to be determined. Mr Markan’s third action (BS2980/14) 

This third action, in which his and BAQ’s applications are now being considered, also followed a purported “invoice” from Mr Markan to BAQ. On its face it has two components. The first is described as the “non creative” component for $500,000 which, it is said, has been “graciously waved [sic]”. The second is described as the “creative component” for the “promotion of Bar Association of Queensland ... as the most effective Mafia organisation in the world”. The amount, which is not broken down, is $10,000,000.13. The statement of claim alleges the parties have reached an agreement, under which this sum is payable by BAQ to Mr Markan, “... by virtue of their conduct”. 

The judgment notes Markan's claims regarding the overall invalidity of law 

It is alleged in the statement of claim that BAQ has been a “very successful criminal organisation” which has gained its “greatest benefit ... by obtaining the monopoly for the staffing the position of ‘judges’ in courts”; and that “...mafia appointed ‘judges’ ... corruptly obtained position of so called ‘authority’ within legitimate legal system”. Amongst Mr Markan’s prayers for relief he seeks a declaration that s 59 of the Queensland Constitution is invalid (because it breaches the Statute of Monopolies 1623 and “human/civil rights legislation”), and an associated declaration that “any member of the community has the right to become a judge (as unalienable human/civil right [sic]), as such job does not require any specific qualifications or competence”. 

Again, the pleading includes claims that BAQ is a criminal organisation, and that persons associated with it should be sent to re-education facilities and subjected to hard physical labour. ... 

Mr Markan’s other litigation: Crime and Misconduct Commission, Qld Police Service and Legal Services Commission 

It is not only BAQ which has been the subject of proceedings of this kind, brought by Mr Markan. He sued the Crime and Misconduct Commission (as it then was) in proceedings commenced in May 2013. He also sued the CMC for $10,000,000.13 for damages, sought a public apology from it and, also, asked the court to recommend that people associated with that organisation be sent to re-education facilities where they would be subjected to hard physical labour. 

As the decision of the Court of Appeal in Markan v Crime and Misconduct Commission [2014] QCA 60 shows, Mr Markan had earlier instituted proceedings against the Legal Services Commission in the nature of an application for judicial review of the Commission’s handling of his original complaint. A judge of the Supreme Court determined there was no basis for a review. 

Then, he lodged a formal complaint with the CMC about the conduct of the Legal Services Commission and BAQ alleging – again and in particular – that the Commission was “involved in mafia style protection of lawyers who are abusing the system”. When the CMC did not take any action in respect of that complaint he bought proceedings in which he alleged the CMC was a “commercial organisation”, contracted “to provide services to the people of Queensland” but had failed to act in an “honest, fair and reasonable manner ..., but rather was guilty of unconscionable conduct and dishonesty” and had therefore failed in its duties. 

The Trial Division judge who heard the matter determined there was no basis for judicial review. 

The same themes emerged in Mr Markan’s claim and statement of claim in the CMC proceedings and in his written and oral submission to the Court of Appeal as in his three actions against BAQ. At paragraph [17] of his reasons in the Court of Appeal, Morrison JA (with whom McMurdo P and Gotterson JA agreed) noted that Mr Markan’s written and oral submissions to the court consisted of a repetition of what had occurred before the primary judge, and went on to make demands that Mr Markan’s human rights be acknowledged and respected, and attacked the primary judge on the basis of his lack of competency, and made “scandalous assertions going to the judge’s character and confidence” – without, again, any evidence or persuasive arguments to support any of these allegations. 

At paragraph [18] Morrison JA observed that the central theme of Mr Markan’s outline was that for a variety of reasons, some of them bizarre, the learned primary judge was not qualified to hear the application because of his appointment under an illegitimate and corrupt legal system. At [20] he observed that Mr Markan’s “abuse of the Court, and of the opportunity to address the issues in the appeal, reached the level where he asserted that none of the members of this Court were recognised by him as legitimate judicial officers, able to hear and determine the issues in the appeal, describing this Court as a ‘Kangaroo Court’”. The appeal was dismissed, with costs. 

Mr Markan then sent correspondence to the Commissioner of Police calling for the “arrest, investigation and prosecution” of the three judges who determined the CMC matter in the Court of Appeal. When that did not happen he brought proceedings against the Qld Police Service. He, again, sought damages of $10,000,000.13 on the basis that QPS had breached its “SOCIAL CONTRACT” to protect him as a member of the Queensland community. 

In his statement of claim he says that at the Court of Appeal hearing he asked all three presiding judges to provide evidence of their competence; that they failed to do so; and, therefore, in the absence of that evidence there could, in effect, be no disagreement with his categorisation of the court as a “kangaroo court”, nor any legal challenge to that conclusion. He recites, in the statement of claim, that he is treating those appeal court judges “... just as the public gallery and they are welcome to listen to my issues I have with ‘Crime and Misconduct Commission’ and then I presented my case in legitimate court without illegitimate judges”. 

The prayer for relief seeks orders, again, for a public apology; for a declaration that the QPS be declared a “CRIMINAL ORGANISATION”; and that persons associated with the QPS be sent to re-education facilities and subjected to hard labour. 

Mr Markan brought an application that a Trial Division judge, sitting in applications, make orders freezing QPS’s bank accounts and all available assets and, indeed selling the QPS including its assets if the amount “... in bank accounts is not sufficient to cover my legal Claim”; and, in any event, for the payment to him of $10,000,000.13. 

Do any of Mr Markan’s claims have substance? 

It might be argued by Mr Markan, as a non-lawyer and a self-represented litigant, that the various terms used by judges to describe his proceedings and his conduct of them are expressed in lawyerly terms and, in some cases, a form of judicial shorthand, and that no court or judge has ever actually pointed out or explained to him, citing chapter and verse, why all the relief he seeks is without any legal basis and doomed to fail. It is appropriate, then, to consider the basis of his claims and, for the sake of finality, to consider if any have any merit or substance. 

First, there is no basis for his claims alleging contracts with some defendants, and breaches of them. BAQ’s initiation of an investigation, for example, did not bring into existence a contract with Mr Markan for the simple reason the alleged transaction did not occur, is entirely unilateral, and lacks a fundamental prerequisite for the creation of a contract: an offer, and its acceptance. 

Secondly, Mr Markan attempts to rely upon a number of international treaties to support his contention that the judicial selection process, set out in s 59 of the Queensland Constitution, overlooks fundamental human rights; and, therefore, that the judges are biased because they are chosen from a particular portion of society, namely lawyers. 

He relies, for this argument, upon the right to a “fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law” guaranteed by Article 14 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and a number of other articles concerning equal treatment; but, his contention that the ICCPR is binding law in Queensland by virtue of ss 109 and 117 of the Australian Constitution is incorrect, as it does not bring into play constitutional issues regarding inconsistencies between Commonwealth and State laws, nor laws that discriminate between residents of different States. 

Further, the ICCPR is an international treaty that is not directly enforceable by Australian courts. Mr Markan points to the replication of much of the ICCPR in the human rights legislation in Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, but these statutes are not applicable in Queensland, and there is no comparable Queensland Act that establishes that the ICCPR is binding in this State. For the same reason, the Supreme Court of Queensland has no jurisdiction to determine alleged breaches of other international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. 

Thirdly, Mr Markan relies on anti-discrimination legislation to further his argument relating to the unfairness of judicial appointments. Mr Markan cannot rely on the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), as it invests that Commission with a statutory jurisdiction beyond the scope of this Court. Mr Markan also contends that the suppression of his claim is “direct discrimination” (section 9(a)) and discrimination on the basis of a “political belief or activity” (section 7(j)) under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld), but he is unable to provide factual evidence demonstrating direct discrimination in the legal sense, namely how he has been treated “less favourably” by the BAQ, on the basis of his political beliefs or the political activities in which he might engage. 

Fourthly, he claims that the judicial selection process in Queensland is inconsistent with principles enunciated by the Magna Carta, the Due Process of Law Act 1368 and the Statute of Monopolies 1623. Although these historical instruments were received as English law by the Australian colonies through a number of Imperial Acts, they are not binding legislation. This is because, like all British statutes, they do not apply to the extent that the Commonwealth or Queensland legislatures have chosen, through exercising their parliamentary sovereignty, to override them. 

Finally, he refers to Mabo (No 2)[26] to suggest that judges of the Supreme Court do not have judicial authority because that case established that “previous pretences that Australia was an empty country or empty place is [sic] not valid” and that ”that law of the land is an Aboriginal law”. Although Mr Markan’s first contention is correct and the High Court did reject the doctrine of terra nullius and recognise common law native title, it did not undermine or supersede Anglo-Australian law per se or impact on the validity of the appointment of judicial officers in this country. 

Should an order be made against Mr Markan under the VPA? 

BAQ’s contention, is, in short, that Mr Markan has serially instituted and pursued vexatious proceedings against BAQ and other parties, and there is an irresistible inference that he will continue to do so. 

Under s 6 of the VPA a “vexatious proceedings order” can be made if the court is satisfied if the person has frequently instituted or conducted vexatious proceedings in Australia. ... The analysis of each of the actions set out earlier, and of the absence of any legal substance in the claims made in any of them, shows a similarity of form and content – fanciful claims, with no basis in law, as to the existence of a contract for the provision of a service which is, itself, plainly fictitious and ridiculous; claims for extraordinarily high damages, the calculation of which has no rational nor sensible basis; the making of unsubstantiated and baseless, but very serious, accusations against each defendant, supplemented by affidavit material and written submissions which repeat or expand upon those statements and, also, extend to include judges in general, and specific members of the judiciary; regular appeals, to the limit of the appeals process, in which the appeal involves nothing more than a rerunning of arguments previously said to be without merit, and hopeless – and, the use of the appeal forum to repeat unjustified, baseless and sometimes scandalous accusations (including personal attacks upon the judge who decided the matter under appeal); and, applications to judges who preside over cases involving Mr Markan to recuse themselves. 

A number of judges have now categorised and described Mr Markan’s proceedings, the claims he makes, the relief he seeks, and the interlocutory applications and appeals he has brought as, variously (but not exhaustively), baseless, scandalous, an abuse of process, outrageous, fanciful, unsustainable, patently ridiculous, frivolous, vexatious, misguided, manifestly without merit, and doomed to fail. 

Despite his many setbacks in the courts, and statements by a number of judges in those terms (and adverse costs orders), he persists. The absence of any legal basis for his actions, combined with his perseverance in the face of these adverse judgments, compels the conclusion that his proceedings are vexatious within the meaning of that term in the VPA. 

There is another aspect of the various proceedings brought by Mr Markan which, in my view, tells strongly against him and cements the conclusion that the actions are vexatious: despite what has now so often been said to him by courts and judges, he has learnt nothing from those decisions and judgments and displays no insight into what they reveal about the manifest shortcomings in his conduct of his litigation. 

A vivid example is that, when applications are brought to strike out his proceedings and he is allowed the opportunity to amend, he does not do so in a way which is responsive, or rational; rather, his amended claims and pleadings are more extravagant, and less coherent, than the documents he initially filed. The rules and practice of proper pleading are not easily learned, but the remedies he seeks have become increasingly disconnected from reality, and bizarre. The zenith (or nadir) might be said to be his attack upon s 59 of the Queensland Constitution and the claims he now makes about sitting judges. ... It is compelling that Mr Markan has brought proceedings which, being without merit or prospects of success, are an abuse of the process of the court. The history of the proceedings he has begun, involving ridiculous and impossible claims, also compels the conclusion that they have been instituted (whether deliberately or otherwise) to harass, annoy, to cause delay or detriment, or for another wrongful purpose; and, that his conduct of the proceedings themselves should also be described in that way. 

... Mr Markan has already taken up a great deal of time and trouble (and public resources) in the Trial Division, the Queensland Court of Appeal, and the High Court. He should be stopped.

Homeless

'A Homeless Bill of Rights (Revolution)' by Sara Rankin in (2015) Seton Hall Law Review (Forthcoming) examines

an emerging movement so far unexplored by legal scholarship: the proposal and, in some states, the enactment of a Homeless Bill of Rights. This article presents these new laws as a lens to re-examine storied debates over positive and social welfare rights. Homeless bills of rights also present a compelling opportunity to re-examine rights-based theories in the context of social movement scholarship. Specifically, could these laws be understood as part of a new "rights revolution"? What conditions might influence the impact of these new laws on the individual rights of the homeless or the housed? On American rights culture and consciousness?

The article surveys current efforts to advance homeless bills of rights across nine states and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and evaluates these case studies from a social movement perspective. Ultimately, the article predicts that these new laws are more likely to have an incremental social and normative impact than an immediate legal impact. Even so, homeless bills of rights are a critical, if slight, step to advance the rights of one of the most vulnerable segments of contemporary society. Perhaps as significantly, these new laws present an opportunity for housed Americans to confront our collective, deeply-rooted biases against the homeless.

Rankin comments -

A new movement is afoot: in June 2012, Rhode Island passed the mainland’s first Homeless Bill of Rights. State legislatures in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, Missouri, and Massachusetts quickly followed suit, introducing their own bills. So far, Connecticut and Illinois have already joined Rhode Island with freshly enacted homeless bills of rights. Other states are actively evaluating the prospects for such legislation.

Homeless bills of rights articulate a vibrant range of rights and remedies. For example, some provide the right to shelter, sustenance, or health care, while others incorporate rights against employment discrimination or police harassment. Some provide civil remedies for those whose statutory rights have been violated; at least one vests the creation, implementation, and enforcement of rights in an administrative entity. Although these new laws illustrate varying substantive provisions and strategic compromises, they share the overarching goal of improving the lives of homeless Americans.

The emergence of this new legislative tool raises compelling questions. What exactly is a homeless bill of rights? What is its purpose? What are the differences and similarities across jurisdictions? What types of rights are or should be covered? How, if at all, are these rights different than those afforded to housed individuals? Do these laws announce any new rights? Or are they merely statutory reiterations of constitutional or civil rights already afforded to the homeless—or for that matter, to housed individuals? If homeless bills of rights are only statutory reiterations of already existing rights, how might these laws meaningfully improve the lives of homeless people?

On the other hand, if homeless bills of rights actually purport to create new rights for homeless people—such as positive social welfare rights—should advocates fight for judicial enforcement provisions? If a right is not judicially enforceable, is it really a right at all? Many legal scholars and homeless advocates contend that judicial enforceability is the sine qua non of a right. Indeed, virtually all homeless bill of rights so far advanced on the mainland United States explicitly provide for civil remedies. But others dispute the necessity of judicial enforceability to the realization of a right, instead emphasizing the realization of rights through agency implementation. After all, judicial rulings do not necessarily translate to agency implementation; to the contrary, judicial enforcement may be ineffectual or even provoke legislative repeal of a law. Accordingly, should homeless advocates expend significant resources to ensure homeless bills of rights contain civil remedies provisions? What approach best ensures the implementation and realization of rights for homeless Americans?

By their very nature, homeless bills of rights invite such robust rights-based inquiries. Ultimately, the value of a homeless bill of rights must be measured by its potential contribution to the lives of homeless Americans. Of course, any ideal outcome would significantly revise how American society perceives, values, and incorporates homeless people—the law would be part of a social movement that transforms relationships between the housed and homeless from exclusive to inclusive. In this respect, homeless bills of rights might be understood as part of an effort to naturalize a normative vision. Social movement theory can help to explain how such a normative vision might become a reality.

This Article is the first to identify and analyze the new, growing phenomenon of homeless bills of rights in the United States. The Article is enriched with feedback and insights of homeless advocates nationwide, the result of dozens of interviews with advocates inside and outside of active jurisdictions. Part I introduces the specific context of homeless advocacy, spotlighting key issues with homelessness in the United States. Part II surveys case studies of current efforts to enact homeless bills of rights in nine states and Puerto Rico. This section briefly describes the history, content, and status of these bills, and draws substantive and strategic comparisons among these case studies. Part III introduces a rights revolution framework. Specifically, this section surveys rights-based theories and their application to social movement “rights revolutions.” It applies a rights revolution framework to these case studies and analyzes the potential challenges and benefits of this new legislative tool, both from a practical and theoretical perspective. The Article concludes that homeless bills of rights are more likely to have an incremental social and normative impact than an immediate legal impact. Even so, these new laws are an important step toward a long-overdue rights revolution for one of America’s most vulnerable populations. Perhaps as significantly, these new laws present an opportunity for housed Americans to confront our persistent, deeply-rooted biases against the homeless.

Animal Citizenship and Theriocide

'Do Animals Need Citizenship?' (Georgia State University College of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2014-36) by William A. Edmundson comments that

 An ambitious proposal by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka seeks to break out of an impasse that animal-rights advocacy seems to have reached. They divide the animal kingdom into three categories and distribute rights accordingly. Domesticated animals are to be treated as citizens enjoying the same rights and duties as human citizens (adjusting for relative differences in ability, just as we do for children and the severely cognitively handicapped). Wild animal species are to be treated as sovereign nations having rights to their territories. Liminal animals are to be treated as resident aliens. This article is a critique of this "Citizenship Theory" of animal rights. One theme of the critique questions whether citizenship and sovereignty are in fact doing the normative work that Citizenship Theory represents them as doing. Another theme questions whether rights of citizenship and sovereignty can be of use to the animals Citizenship Theory would bestow them on.

Edmundson argues

Animals need rights. The value a right has, for the one holding it, derives mostly from the set of duties it imposes on others. But the value of a right is not exhausted by that set. A set of “indirect” duties can protect a variety of animal interests, but it cannot coherently protect an interest in maintaining dignity. Someone to whom a duty is owed, i.e., is directed, occupies a higher plane than one who is the mere object of an impersonal duty. Rights, and their correlative directed duties, respect the dignity of the right holder in a special way. Rights are also more amenable to enforcement by proxies than indirect duties are. A proxy speaks for someone, and not merely for something. Rights, in contrast to mere collections of directed duties, serve a generative function. The set of duties correlative to a right is open-ended; and sensitivity to another’s rights means recognition of a host of directed duties that might otherwise go unnoticed. Finally, rights serve a fallback function, which comes into play when sympathy and affection are attenuated or absent.

But do animals need the rights associated with citizenship? Do they need the right to exercise sovereignty over a territory? Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka have argued that these distinctively political rights can not only be held by animals but can also be distinctively beneficial to them. Moreover, these rights can be forensically effective instruments for animal-welfare activism (Donaldson and Kymlicka 2011, 2013; Kymlicka and Donaldson 2014).

Donaldson and Kymlicka ruefully observe that advocacy of universal animal rights on the model of universal human rights has gotten traction only among certain activists and academics. It has “virtually no resonance amongst the general public” and remains “a political non-starter” (2011, 5,6), even though electorates have increasingly shown a degree of worry about the treatment of animals. Apart from scattered, incremental reforms, the picture is depressing: an “Eternal Treblinka” (2011, 2) whose moral and political superstructure remains largely unquestioned.

Why the impasse? Selfishness (both individual and corporate), selective blindness, and cultural tradition are contributing factors, but Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that the way animal rights theory, or “ART”—their acronymic designation for a certain typical development of animal rights theory—has been framed is itself an important obstacle. The “classical model of ART” recognizes “only one acceptable relationship to animals: treating them ethically means leaving them alone, not interfering with their negative right to life and liberty” (2011, 9). Typical negative rights are the right not to be murdered, not to be raped, not to be experimented on, while a typical positive duty would be to render aid to someone who is in distress, and a typical relational duty would be a duty to support one’s family and to stick up for one’s friends. The nearly exclusive theoretical concentration on universal negative rights for animals contrasts to the human context, in which, they claim, “the vast bulk of reasoning and moral theorizing concerns not [the] universal negative rights but rather the positive and relational obligations we have to other groups of humans” (2011, 6). Many of the rights and duties humans owe each other arise out of relationships: parent and child, teacher and student, master and apprentice, and the typically asymmetrical dependency of latter on the former gives normative content to the positive duties—and correlative positive rights—that arise. So, they have urged, let’s talk about positive and relational 3 rights for animals.

The Relational Turn

At first, citizenship rights for animals seems to be an odd prescription. If a short list of negative rights for animals is a hard sell, one would expect that enlarging the list to include positive rights would be harder still. But what Donaldson and Kymlicka propose is not a wholesale enlargement. (In effect, as I point out below, the position they advocate contracts the scope of both positive and negative rights that wild animals might enjoy.) Rather, the relational turn begins by articulating certain underlying joints in the moral landscape. The first step is to extract three salient, morally relevant categories from the manifold variety of human-animal interactions. There are domesticated animals, that we have bred to be dependent upon us and live amongst us, such as household pets. There are wild animals, who wish to, and are capable of, living apart from us, and with whom we have little interaction unless we are animal ethologists, zoologists, or zookeepers. Finally, there are liminal animals, such as pigeons, raccoons, squirrels, and feral cats, that live amongst us but do not normally affiliate with or depend upon particular humans, although they are dependent upon access to human settlements and the food waste they produce and the niche habitats they provide. Donaldson and Kymlicka propose to rescue ART by structuring it around these three categories.

The rescue is completed by making a second turn, from the relational to the political philosophical. Because domesticated animals live among us and must for the most part continue to do so, they are to be treated as citizens, enjoying the same rights and duties as human citizens — adjusting of course for relevant differences in ability, just as we do for children and the severely cognitively handicapped. Wild animals species are to be treated as sovereign nations having rights to their territories. Liminal animals are to be treated as resident aliens. All three categories are protected by certain universal negative rights; but integrated with these are “differentiated positive rights” (2011, 11) that largely track the three categories. This, in a nutshell, is the “expanded citizenship-based ART” (2011, 15), or “the citizenship approach” (2011, 16) Donaldson and Kymlicka propose. I will refer to it as Citizenship Theory.

The Citizenship Theory crucially depends on the “citizenship logic” (2011, 15) that analogizes a threefold division of domesticated, liminal, and wild animals to categories based on sovereignty and citizenship. To get a clearer sense of what citizenship logic is intended to do, it helps to first review what Donaldson and Kymlicka see as ART’s weaknesses. Classical ART gravitates toward two particularly extreme and therefore vulnerable positions. The first is an “abolitionist” position on domesticated animals. Interaction between humans and the animals they domesticate is inevitably exploitative and unjust, according to ART. But domesticated animals are, by definition, dependent upon human interaction for their continued existence. Therefore, the abolitionist wing of ART calls for the (humane) extinction of all species of domesticated animals. That puts an end to unjust exploitation, but it also puts an end to all dogs, cats, horses, pigs, chickens and other domesticated animals that cannot be returned to a viable wild state. Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that the abolitionist position not only alienates many of ART’s strongest allies, it heedlessly overlooks the possibility of citizenship for domesticated animals.

ART’s second unsatisfactory position is a “let them be” injunction with respect to wild animals. This position may resonate with a popular “laissez faire intuition” about animals of species that typically avoid human contact with humans. But it does not allow for positive duties toward wild animals; nor could it, except in an ad hoc way, provide limits on any such positive duties. ART thus gets caught in a “‘too little—too much’ dilemma” (2011, 11): either stick with a narrow negative-rights conception of the universal right to life, and turn a blind eye to habitat destruction and ecological spillovers that do not injure identifiable individual creatures. Or broaden the right to life in wholesale fashion, and license massive wholesale intervention and management of wild species, going even as far as to try to prevent or extinguish predatory behavior. Citizenship Theory unravels the dilemma: it supports positive rights but embeds them in a principled structure that defines sensible conditions and limits.

'Theriocide: Naming Animal Killing' by Piers Beirne in (2014) 3(2) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 49-66 comments

In this essay I recommend ‘theriocide’ as the name for those diverse human actions that cause the deaths of animals. Like the killing of one human by another, theriocide may be socially acceptable or unacceptable, legal or illegal. It may be intentional or unintentional and may involve active maltreatment or passive neglect. Theriocide may occur one-on-one, in small groups or in large-scale social institutions. The numerous and sometimes intersecting sites of theriocide include intensive rearing regimes; hunting and fishing; trafficking; vivisection; militarism; pollution; and human-induced climate change. If the killing of animals by humans is as harmful to them as homicide is to humans, then the proper naming of such deaths offers a remedy, however small, to the extensive privileging of human lives over those of other animals. Inevitably, the essay leads to a shocking question: Is theriocide murder?. 

... The variety of ways that we kill animals seems without limit. Animals can be boiled, cooked, crushed, electrocuted, ensnared, exterminated, harpooned, hooked, hunted, injected with chemicals, netted, poached, poisoned, run over, shot, slit, speared, strangled, stuck, suffocated, trapped and vivisected. However, operating in tandem with the strategic invisibility of animals in slaughterhouses is the increasing elusiveness of their deaths in various discourses of lethality. Euphemisms rule here. Varying according to such factors as the social class of the hunters and the species of the hunted, many hunting discourses, for example, describe the dead bodies of ‘game’ as the ‘catch’, ‘bag’, ‘yield’, ‘take’ and ‘harvest’. Specialty hunting often requires specialty language. Among the euphemisms for the killing of foxes, for example, hunters refer to the imminent killing or the moment of killing of their quarry as ‘to account for’, ‘bowl over’, ‘break up’, ‘bring to book’, ‘chop’, ‘deal with’, ‘punish’, ‘crush’ and ‘roll over’. Heads of killed foxes are named ‘masks’, their paws ‘pads’ and their tails ‘brushes’. Animals dissected and killed during ‘scientific experimentation’ and ‘vivisection’ become ‘sacrifices’, ‘subjects’, ‘objects’ and ‘products’. Animals killed by the military are referred to as ‘collateral damage’. Animals are ‘humanely’ killed and ‘put to sleep’ and ‘euthanised’ in ‘shelters’ under the guise of ‘pest control’ and ‘nuisance avoidance’. 

Some killing euphemisms do duty in different discourses. Among these are ‘cull’, ‘catch’, ‘crop’ – both ‘live’ and ‘dressed’ – ‘harvest’ and ‘sacrifice’. ‘Cull’, for example, is used by ecologically‐ minded hunters to refer to the killing and ‘removal’ of weaker animals in a herd or to police and ‘eliminate’ undesirable predators which threaten more desirable species. In this capacity ‘cull’ competes with ‘animal population control’, ‘artificial selection’, ‘nuisance wildlife management’, ‘selective breeding’ and ‘game management’. Sometimes, as well, culling or ‘putting down’ is used as Orwellian‐speak for the killing of cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. A harvest also refers to the killing of fish or to the number of animals killed, as does a ‘strike’. When the harvest is coupled with or intersects self‐stated ecological practices, the killing of animals is termed ‘sound’ or ‘responsible’ or ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’. When human intervention practices lead to the killing of an entire species, such as happened with mammoths and passenger pigeons, animals become ‘extinct’, though ‘speciescide’ or, even, ‘genocide’ might be a better term here. 

 The recitation of these euphemisms here is not a prelude to some immediate moralizing on the wrongfulness of animal killing. Rather, it is intended as a step on the path towards greater honesty in how we talk about our killing of animals. My present aim, therefore, is to name the diverse sites of animal killing as theriocide. This I begin by juxtaposing how we presently talk about humans killing humans, on the one hand, with how we describe humans killing animals, on the other. 

Further definition of theriocide 

Theriocide refers to those diverse human actions that cause the deaths of animals. As with the killing of one human by another (for example, homicide, infanticide and femicide3), a theriocide may be socially acceptable or unacceptable, legal or illegal. It may be intentional or unintentional. It may involve active maltreatment or passive neglect. Theriocides may occur one‐on‐one, in small groups or in large‐scale social institutions. The numerous sites of theriocide include intensive rearing regimes; hunting and fishing; trafficking; vivisection; militarism; pollution; and human‐induced climate change. 

Etymology 

Theriocide is the killing of an animal by a human. It combines the ancient Greek ... (an animal other than a human) and the Latin cædere. ..., first, is a prosaic variant of θηρ, which seems originally to have meant a beast of prey. Later, ... was extended to other animals, probably including wild and domesticated animals and metaphorical monsters. ‘Cædere’ denotes the action of cutting or felling or killing. It is the source of the French word abattoir, where the felling of trees is used as a euphemism for both the rendering of animals to a horizontal position and also the site of their slaughter. 

It is impossible to know with certainty when and where any given word originated. As a word, theriocide has been used at least four times previously (Beirne 2007: 63, 2009: 17, 182; Nihan 2007: 407‐08, 413 n.76; Schwartz 1996: 7, 31). 

In my own case, in 2007, it was inserted, vaguely and with little thought, into a critical assessment of evidence on the progression thesis: namely, the claim that there is a link of escalation or graduation between animal cruelty and violence between humans. My argument, which still stands, was meant not only to welcome the scholarly and activist interest in individualized cruelty to animals but also to problematize a widespread reluctance for investigation of those institutionalized cruelties where theriocide is committed on a much greater scale. 

Quite coincidentally, later in the same year, the rabbinical scholar Christophe Nihan used ‘theriocide’ as his translation of the Hebrew phrase for ‘wrongful animal killing’ (2007: 408; and see Schwartz 1996: 7). Nihan’s choice of theriocide stemmed from his interpretation of the strictures in Genesis 9: 4‐6 and Leviticus 17: 3‐4 against the shedding of human and nonhuman blood. These rules entailed, on the one hand, that any wrongful killing of humans was condemned as homicide and subject to divine sanction by the Hebrew god Yahweh. On the other, the judgment of an animal’s death as wrongful killing – that is, as theriocide – was limited to the profane sacrifice of three species of domestic quadrupeds: namely, oxen, sheep and goats (Nihan 2007: 407‐08 and 413 n.76; and see Milgrom 2008: 1456‐1457). (Interestingly, it is unclear in both Genesis and Leviticus and also in Nihan’s and Schwartz’s accounts whether or not the unlawful killing of animals was intended to be regarded as a lesser and lower‐key derivation of homicide laws.) 

Etymologically speaking, at least two sorts of objection may be made to the employment of theriocide in lethality discourse. Purists might object, for example, that theriocide is a hybrid and therefore inferior to constructions with simpler pedigrees. But stuffiness towards hybrids has been waning of late. None of us shudders very often or, at least, not for that reason, when we use words like television or criminology. Moreover, two other constructions can also be mentioned: ‘zoocide’ and ‘animalicide’. Against zoocide, first: on the one hand, though the ancient Greek 'zoon' means a living being, including an animal – as opposed to a plant, phyton – the verb with which it is cognate (zao) is also used for human life. In other words, zoocide locks us into a Wittgensteinian vicious circle that ironically privileges humans. On the other, though it has the apparent advantage of being very popular as the name of a site where animals are used as objects of spectacle and entertainment, ‘zoo’ is overloaded with cultural baggage. The would‐be ‘animalicide’, second, entails one of the same problems as zoocide: namely, that it refers both to humans and to animals other than humans. Worse still, animalicide would be an anthropocentric derivation from the Sanskrit origin of the word ‘animal’: namely, ‘that which is to be feared’. 

Scope 

The number of other animals we humans kill seems limited only by technology and our own ingenuity. Among the major sites of theriocide are intensive rearing regimes; hunting and fishing; trafficking; vivisection; militarism; pollution; and climate change.

Financial Systems Inquiry Final Report

The Financial Systems Inquiry (aka Murray Inquiry) has released its final report on how "to best position Australia’s financial system to meet Australia’s evolving needs and support economic growth". The report claims to offer "a blueprint for an efficient and resilient financial system over the next 10 to 20 years, characterised by the fair treatment of users" and reflecting "public interest: the interests of individuals, businesses, the economy, taxpayers and Government".

The report features 44 recommendations, reflecting an assessment that

Australia’s financial system has performed well since the Wallis Inquiry and has many strong characteristics. It also has a number of weaknesses: taxation and regulatory settings distort the flow of funding to the real economy; it remains susceptible to financial shocks; superannuation is not delivering retirement incomes efficiently; unfair consumer outcomes remain prevalent; and policy settings do not focus on the benefits of competition and innovation. As a result, the system is prone to calls for more regulation. To put these issues in context, the Overview first deals with the characteristics of Australia’s economy. It then describes the characteristics of and prerequisites for a well-functioning financial system and the Inquiry’s philosophy of financial regulation.

The report accordingly  focuses on seven themes-

The Overview deals with the general themes of funding the Australian economy and competition. The Inquiry has also made recommendations on five specific themes, which comprise the next chapters of this report:

•Strengthen the economy by making the financial system more resilient.

•Lift the value of the superannuation system and retirement incomes.

•Drive economic growth and productivity through settings that promote innovation.

•Enhance confidence and trust by creating an environment in which financial firms treat customers fairly.

•Enhance regulator independence and accountability, and minimise the need for future regulation.

These recommendations seek to improve efficiency, resilience and fair treatment in the Australian financial system, allowing it to achieve its potential in supporting economic growth and enhancing standards of living for current and future generations.

Its assumption is that

The financial sector plays a vital role in supporting a vibrant, growing economy that improves the standard of living for all Australians. The system’s ultimate purpose is to facilitate sustainable growth in the economy by meeting the financial needs of its users.

The Inquiry believes the financial system will achieve this goal if it operates in a manner that is:

•Efficient: An efficient system allocates Australia’s scarce financial and other resources for the greatest possible benefit to our economy, supporting growth, productivity and prosperity.

•Resilient: The financial system should adjust to changing circumstances while continuing to provide its core economic functions, even during severe shocks. Institutions in distress should be resolvable with minimal costs to depositors, policy holders, taxpayers and the real economy.

•Fair: Fair treatment occurs where participants act with integrity, honesty, transparency and non-discrimination. A market economy operates more effectively where participants enter into transactions with confidence they will be treated fairly. Confidence and trust in the system are essential ingredients in building an efficient, resilient and fair financial system that facilitates economic growth and meets the financial needs of Australians. The Inquiry considers that all financial system participants have roles and responsibilities in engendering that confidence and trust. ....

Central to the Inquiry’s philosophy is the principle that the financial system should be subject and responsive to market forces, including competition. However, competitive markets need to operate within a strong and effective legal and policy framework provided by Government. This includes predictable rule of law with strong property rights; a freely convertible floating currency and free flow of trade, investment and capital across borders; a strong fiscal position; a sound and independent monetary policy framework; and an effective, accountable and transparent government.

The Inquiry’s approach to policy intervention is guided by the public interest. Given the inevitable trade-offs involved, deciding how and when policy makers should intervene in the financial system requires considerable judgement. Intervention should seek to balance efficiency, resilience and fairness in a way that builds participants’ confidence and trust. Intervention should only occur where its benefits to the economy as a whole outweigh its costs, and should always seek to be proportionate and cost sensitive.

The report summarises the Inquiry's recommendations as follows

Resilience (pages 33–88)

1 Capital levels -- Set capital standards such that Australian authorised deposit-taking institution capital ratios are unquestionably strong.

2 Narrow mortgage risk weight differences -- Raise the average internal ratings-based (IRB) mortgage risk weight to narrow the difference between average mortgage risk weights for authorised deposit-taking institutions using IRB risk-weight models and those using standardised risk weights.

3 Loss absorbing and recapitalisation capacity -- Implement a framework for minimum loss absorbing and recapitalisation capacity in line with emerging international practice, sufficient to facilitate the orderly resolution of Australian authorised deposit-taking institutions and minimise taxpayer support.

4 Transparent reporting -- Develop a reporting template for Australian authorised deposit-taking institution capital ratios that is transparent against the minimum Basel capital framework.

5 Crisis management toolkit -- Complete the existing processes for strengthening crisis management powers that have been on hold pending the outcome of the Inquiry.

6 Financial Claims Scheme -- Maintain the ex post funding structure of the Financial Claims Scheme for authorised deposit-taking institutions.

7 Leverage ratio -- Introduce a leverage ratio that acts as a backstop to authorised deposit-taking institutions’ risk-weighted capital positions.

8 Direct borrowing by superannuation funds -- Remove the exception to the general prohibition on direct borrowing for limited recourse borrowing arrangements by superannuation funds.

Superannuation and retirement incomes (pages 89–142)

9 Objectives of the superannuation system -- Seek broad political agreement for, and enshrine in legislation, the objectives of the superannuation system and report publicly on how policy proposals are consistent with achieving these objectives over the long term.

10 Improving efficiency during accumulation -- Introduce a formal competitive process to allocate new default fund members to MySuper products, unless a review by 2020 concludes that the Stronger Super reforms have been effective in significantly improving competition and efficiency in the superannuation system.

11 The retirement phase of superannuation -- Require superannuation trustees to pre-select a comprehensive income product for members’ retirement. The product would commence on the member’s instruction, or the member may choose to take their benefits in another way. Impediments to product development should be removed.

12 Choice of fund -- Provide all employees with the ability to choose the fund into which their Superannuation Guarantee contributions are paid.

13 Governance of superannuation funds -- Mandate a majority of independent directors on the board of corporate trustees of public offer superannuation funds, including an independent chair; align the director penalty regime with managed investment schemes; and strengthen the conflict of interest requirements.

Innovation (pages 143–192)

14 Collaboration to enable innovation -- Establish a permanent public–private sector collaborative committee, the ‘Innovation Collaboration’, to facilitate financial system innovation and enable timely and coordinated policy and regulatory responses.

15 Digital identity --  Develop a national strategy for a federated-style model of trusted digital identities.

16 Clearer graduated payments regulation -- Enhance graduation of retail payments regulation by clarifying thresholds for regulation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. Strengthen consumer protection by mandating the ePayments Code. Introduce a separate prudential regime with two tiers for purchased payment facilities.

17 Interchange fees and customer surcharging --  Improve interchange fee regulation by clarifying thresholds for when they apply, broadening the range of fees and payments they apply to, and lowering interchange fees. Improve surcharging regulation by expanding its application and ensuring customers using lower-cost payment methods cannot be over-surcharged by allowing more prescriptive limits on surcharging.

18 Crowdfunding -- Graduate fundraising regulation to facilitate crowdfunding for both debt and equity and, over time, other forms of financing.

19 Data access and use -- Review the costs and benefits of increasing access to and improving the use of data, taking into account community concerns about appropriate privacy protections.

20 Comprehensive credit reporting -- Support industry efforts to expand credit data sharing under the new voluntary comprehensive credit reporting regime. If, over time, participation is inadequate, Government should consider legislating mandatory participation.

Consumer outcomes (pages 193–232)

21 Strengthen product issuer and distributor accountability -- Introduce a targeted and principles-based product design and distribution obligation.

22 Introduce product intervention power -- Introduce a proactive product intervention power that would enhance the regulatory toolkit available where there is risk of significant consumer detriment.

23 Facilitate innovative disclosure -- Remove regulatory impediments to innovative product disclosure and communication with consumers, and improve the way risk and fees are communicated to consumers.

24 Align the interests of financial firms and consumers -- Better align the interests of financial firms with those of consumers by raising industry standards, enhancing the power to ban individuals from management and ensuring remuneration structures in life insurance and stockbroking do not affect the quality of financial advice.

25 Raise the competency of advisers -- Raise the competency of financial advice providers and introduce an enhanced register of advisers.

26 Improve guidance and disclosure in general insurance -- Improve guidance (including tools and calculators) and disclosure for general insurance, especially in relation to home insurance.

Regulatory system (pages 233–260)

27 Regulator accountability --  Create a new Financial Regulator Assessment Board to advise Government annually on how financial regulators have implemented their mandates. Provide clearer guidance to regulators in Statements of Expectation and increase the use of performance indicators for regulator performance.

28 Execution of mandate -- Provide regulators with more stable funding by adopting a three-year funding model based on periodic funding reviews, increase their capacity to pay competitive remuneration, boost flexibility in respect of staffing and funding, and require them to undertake periodic capability reviews.

29 Strengthening the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s funding and powers -- Introduce an industry funding model for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and provide ASIC with stronger regulatory tools.

30 Strengthening the focus on competition in the financial system -- Review the state of competition in the sector every three years, improve reporting of how regulators balance competition against their core objectives, identify barriers to cross-border provision of financial services and include consideration of competition in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s mandate.

31 Compliance costs and policy processes -- Increase the time available for industry to implement complex regulatory change. Conduct post-implementation reviews of major regulatory changes more frequently.

Significant matters (pages 261–276)

32 Impact investment -- Explore ways to facilitate development of the impact investment market and encourage innovation in funding social service delivery. Provide guidance to superannuation trustees on the appropriateness of impact investment. Support law reform to classify a private ancillary fund as a ‘sophisticated’ or ‘professional’ investor, where the founder of the fund meets those definitions.

33 Retail corporate bond market -- Reduce disclosure requirements for large listed corporates issuing ‘simple’ bonds and encourage industry to develop standard terms for ‘simple’ bonds.

34 Unfair contract term provisions -- Support Government’s process to extend unfair contract term protections to small businesses. Encourage industry to develop standards on the use of non-monetary default covenants.

35 Finance companies --  Clearly differentiate the investment products that finance companies and similar entities offer retail consumers from authorised deposit-taking institution deposits.

36 Corporate administration and bankruptcy -- Consult on possible amendments to the external administration regime to provide additional flexibility for businesses in financial difficulty.

37 Superannuation member engagement -- Publish retirement income projections on member statements from defined contribution superannuation schemes using Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulatory guidance. Facilitate access to consolidated superannuation information from the Australian Taxation Office to use with ASIC’s and superannuation funds’ retirement income projection calculators.

38 Cyber security -- Update the 2009 Cyber Security Strategy to reflect changes in the threat environment, improve cohesion in policy implementation, and progress public–private sector and cross-industry collaboration. Establish a formal framework for cyber security information sharing and response to cyber threats.

39 Technology neutrality --  Identify, in consultation with the financial sector, and amend priority areas of regulation to be technology neutral. Embed consideration of the principle of technology neutrality into development processes for future regulation. Ensure regulation allows individuals to select alternative methods to access services to maintain fair treatment for all consumer segments.

40 Provision of financial advice and mortgage broking -- Rename ‘general advice’ and require advisers and mortgage brokers to disclose ownership structures.

41 Unclaimed monies --  Define bank accounts and life insurance policies as unclaimed monies only if they are inactive for seven years.

42 Managed investment scheme regulation -- Support Government’s review of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee’s recommendations on managed investment schemes, giving priority to matters relating to: •Consumer detriment, including illiquid schemes and freezing of funds. •Regulatory architecture impeding cross-border transactions and mutual recognition arrangements.

43 Legacy products --  Introduce a mechanism to facilitate the rationalisation of legacy products in the life insurance and managed investments sectors.

44 Corporations Act 2001 ownership restrictions -- Remove market ownership restrictions from the Corporations Act 2001 once the current reforms to cross-border regulation of financial market infrastructure are complete.

ALRC Freedoms Inquiry

The Australian Law Reform Commission has released the 130 page issues paper regarding its inquiry into traditional rights and freedoms.

The iquiry is independent of the freedoms inquiry being undertaken by 'Freedoms Commissioner' Tim Wilson under AHRC auspices.

The ALRC has asked the following questions in its paper -

Freedom of Speech

Q2–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with freedom of speech is justified?

Q2–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with freedom of speech, and why are these laws unjustified?

Freedom of Religion

Q3–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with freedom of religion is justified?

Q3–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with freedom of religion, and why are these laws unjustified?

Freedom of Association

Q4–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with freedom of association is justified?

Q4–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with freedom of association, and why are these laws unjustified?

Freedom of Movement

Q5–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with freedom of movement is justified?

Q5–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with freedom of movement, and why are these laws unjustified?

Property Rights

Q6–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that interferes with vested property rights is justified?

Q6–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably interfere with vested property rights, and why are these laws unjustified?

Retrospective Laws

Q7–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that retrospectively changes legal rights and obligations is justified?

Q7–2 Which Commonwealth laws retrospectively change legal rights and obligations without justification? Why are these laws unjustified?

Fair Trial Question

Q8–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that limits the right to a fair trial is justified?

Q8–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably limit the right to a fair trial, and why are these laws unjustified?

Burden of Proof

Q9–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that reverses or shifts the burden of proof is justified?

Q9–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably reverse or shift the burden of proof, and why are these laws unjustified?

The Privilege against Self-incrimination

Q10–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that excludes the privilege against self-incrimination is justified?

Q10–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably exclude the privilege against self-incrimination, and why are these laws unjustified? 

Client Legal Privilege

Q11–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that abrogates client legal privilege is justified?

Q11–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably abrogate client legal privilege, and why are these laws unjustified?

Strict and Absolute Liability

Q12–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that imposes strict or absolute liability for a criminal offence is justified?

Q12–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably imposes strict or absolute liability for a criminal offence, and why are these laws unjustified?

Appeal from Acquittal

Q13–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that allows an appeal from an acquittal is justified?

Q13–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably allow an appeal from an acquittal, and why are these laws unjustified?

Procedural Fairness

Q14–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that denies procedural fairness is justified?

Q14–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably deny procedural fairness, and why are these laws unjustified?

Delegating Legislative Power

Q15–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that delegates legislative power to the executive is justified?

Q15–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably delegate legislative power to the executive, and why are these laws unjustified?

Authorising what would otherwise be a Tort

Q16–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that authorises what would otherwise be a tort is justified?

Q16–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably authorise what would otherwise be a tort, and why are these laws unjustified?

Executive Immunities

Q17–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that gives executive immunities a wide application is justified?

Question 17–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably give executive immunities a wide application, and why are these immunities unjustified?

Judicial Review

Q18–1 What general principles or criteria should be applied to help determine whether a law that restricts access to judicial review is justified?

Q18–2 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably restrict access to judicial review, and why are these laws unjustified?

Others Rights, Freedoms and Privilege

Q19–1 Which Commonwealth laws unjustifiably encroach on other common law rights, freedoms and privileges, and why are these laws unjustified?