CCL in the Courts

The New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties runs test civil liberties cases in the courts. Members offer their time and effort on a volunteer basis. This page gives summaries of significant cases run recently by CCL.

September 2006	Censorship challenge: defending banned books The NSW Council for Civil Liberties commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the Classification Review Board and the Attorney General (Commonwealth) seeking judicial review of the decisions of the Board to refuse classification to two books. The two books are Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan by Abdullah Azzam, both written in the early 1980’s. Read the media release... Read more...
March 2005	Online Privacy and the Music Industry Music Industry companies are seeking to use copyright law to effectively stop the exchange of public domain or non-infringing material. Users of peer-to-peer networks are having their online communications monitored. CCL has joined other community groups in the Federal Court to protect the privacy of online users. The Federal Court has agreed to hear the groups in a 'friends of the court' application in the case of Universal v Sharman. Read the media release... Read more...
November 2003	Can an inadequate translation affect a refugee application? An application for judicial review of a delegate's refusal of a protection visa on the grounds that the translation services provided were so poor that the applicant could not make his case clear to the delegate. While the judge accepted the poor quality of translation may have adversely affected the outcome of the protection visa application, he refused relief on discretionary grounds because the applicant had escaped from detention and therefore made it impossible for him to apply to the RRT. Read more...
August 2003	Torture Convention & Australia's Obligations The issue in the proceedings is whether the Court should grant an injunction to prevent removal from Australia where such removal would be in breach of Australia's obligations under the Torture Convention. CCL has won leave to appeal the Minister's strike out order. Read more...
July 2003	The right to peaceful assembly NSW Supreme Court refused to prohibit a peaceful public protest on the grounds that citizens demonstrating peacefully should not be deprived of statutory protection from criminal liability for offences of participating in an unlawful public assembly or obstruction that might otherwise arise as a result of their participation. Read more...
May 2003	Police search powers, political protest and billboards Charges of maliciously destroying property laid against two students were dismissed because of an unlawful search performed by police. Read more...