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This is the first time I have attempted to write about the legal and justice systems. I think you will agree, when you consider these examples, that our world has gone mad!

The legal system, the establishment of laws, which in democracies, our elected representatives vote into legislation. The justice system, the enforcement of those laws and the meting out of punishments by the courts.

The presumption of innocence is ‘at the heart’ of the Australian criminal justice system — Peta Credlin (25 November 2020)

Peta Credlin’s commentary on the Brereton Report into possible breaches of the Law of Armed Conflict by members of the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan over the period 2005 to 2016.

The report found:

… credible information, not necessarily admissible evidence, that might lead to conviction that 39 Afghan prisoners may have been unlawfully killed and that 19 current or serving soldiers’ conduct should be further investigated. (Brereton)

Based on this report alone, there was a rush by the media and elsewhere to tarnish the reputations of all our special forces, including those who were killed in action, long before any legal proceedings had taken place. Trial by media is certainly not a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. This is madness and shatters any prospect of justice.

Surely we should be slow to judge those whom we have sent out to risk their lives on behalf of us. (Credlin)

‘Transgender ideology in law is extreme and anti-democratic’ — Moira Deeming

Moira Deeming MLC, Victoria, was expelled from her party, the Liberal Party, for allegedly associating with Nazis. She is now suing her party leader for defamation. Moira has been taking a brave stand speaking out against transgender ideology in law, calling it extreme and anti-democratic. She is insistent that the law can’t remove child safeguards and sex-based rights.

I value due process, that would have been nice. This cannot be our answer to this issue, it’s too extreme… The only legal avenue I have is defamation, so that’s what I am going to use. (Deeming)

What Moira has been campaigning against, should never be legitimised by law — it is madness. So, too, is her unjust expulsion from the Liberal Party of Victoria.

Monica Smit arrested and imprisoned in solitary confinement for 22 days

Founder of Reignite Democracy Australia Monica Smit became a well-known activist during the COVID era. She spoke out against her government’s handling of the pandemic. Her political stance and human rights advocacy saw her arrested and imprisoned in solitary conferment for 22 days. (Robert F. Kennedy Jr)

I am just a regular Aussie girl who made enemies with powerful people. It was August 2020, we were in lockdown again… no one knew who I was, I started a Facebook page, Reignite Democracy, Australia… We have God on our side and God always wins in the end! (Monica Smit)

She was arrested and charged with incitement (to protest against the Victorian government’s laws). She was imprisoned as she refused to sign her bail conditions that would have removed certain freedoms and her fundamental rights.

In September 2023, she published her biography, Cell 22: From Party Girl to Political Prisoner. I have been following her work for three years now and find her to be a God-fearing, genuine, humble girl, passionate about giving a voice to the fearful whose lives have been destroyed by governments’ abuse of the legal and justice systems.

Will Democrats call out the riots in Seattle and elsewhere?

We are about to fire 100 police officers (defunding the police), but so many are leaving on their own. There are well over 100 applications, because they don’t want to work for the city of Seattle, a city that despises them, a city that has made attacking police officers a sport! They don’t feel supported by the community…These are not protests, they go out there with the intent of causing harm to these police officers…

Joe Biden says the soul of the nation is on the line and he’s 100% correct. Only he’s on the wrong side of the issue as he and other Dems stay silent as Antifa goons and other far left agitators riot, destroy businesses and attack cops. (Jason Rantz, radio show host, Seattle)

The irony! In Melbourne, the police were armed to the hilt, pepper spray, rubber bullets, police on horseback and armoured anti-riot vehicles. Here in Seattle, the police are running in fear for their lives from the ‘protesters’.

To state the obvious, the police in both Melbourne and Seattle were not there to uphold the peace, human rights, and the rule of law. They have become the arm of the political power in office at the time. Politics has trashed law and order.

Hillsong founder Brian Houston found not guilty of concealing his father’s sexual abuse

Brian Houston, thank you so much for your time. How did it get to this, you being charged, when the magistrate said, you were just doing what the victim wanted? (Andrew Bolt)

Well, I think that’s a very big question. Unfortunately, it has taken 25 years, for that charge to be answered today. I believe that if I wasn’t Brian Houston from Hillsong Church, this charge would never have happened. There were many people who knew about my fathers’ abuse before I was, and they never did anything about it. I was the one who confronted my father and am the one, many years later being charged. This is a tragic blight on sections of the Australian media and sections of the Australian population (Brian Houston)

I would add it’s also a blight on our legal and justice systems. Magistrate Gareth Christofi handed down his acquittal on Thursday, 17 August 2023. After all these years, Pastor Brian Houston was found not guilty of a ‘crime’ (Samuel Hartwich – Daily Declaration).

How can our legal and justice systems permit such a barbaric abuse of an individual? While he was never ‘found guilty’, the Australian public, thanks to the biased media coverage, had already ‘sentenced’ him. There was never a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Even the acquittal in August was only briefly reported by most mainstream media. I guess they would find it hard to admit their mistake.

This strikes me as a classic example of ‘tall poppy syndrome’, so prevalent in Australian society.  They see anyone who is successful, as target practice. This abuse of Brian Houston should never have been allowed by the system.

Lyle Shelton Wins Landmark Free Speech Battle With Drag Queens

Lyle Shelton’s landmark legal battle with two drag queens who accused him of vilification has been dismissed by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, in a major win for free speech and children’s safety in Australia.

Jeremy Gordon, the QCAT member overseeing the case, ruled on 10 August 2023 that Johnny Valkyrie and Dwayne Hill were not sexually vilified by Mr Shelton when he called them “dangerous role models for children” on his blog and during a podcast episode. Mr Gordon dismissed all five charges brought in the case, the Daily Telegraph reports. (Kurt Mahlburg)

Yes, Lyle Shelton dared to challenge the practice of drag queens reading to children in public libraries. But:

Most Australians will be shocked to know that the price of freedom of speech is north of $200,000, will cost three years of your life and force you to be subject to hours of cross-examination by a Senior Counsel in a public trial.

Politicians must now act to protect what most Australians thought they could take for granted — the freedom to speak freely about gender, women, girls’ and children’s rights. (Lyle Shelton)

Thankfully, Lyle Shelton’s case was supported by donations and the work of some great lawyers pro bono. But the complainants had to bear no responsibility; their lawyers, the LGBTI Legal Service, received at least $400,000 from the Queensland taxpayers (John Sandeman). Madness!

Crime and Punishment by Laurence Fox

Laurence Fox is a political and social commentator in the UK who now leads a new political movement, the Reclaim Party. He set this up in October 2020 after appearing on BBC Question Time in January that year. For challenging the woke orthodoxy of “white privilege” and “systemic racism”, he was cancelled from a 22-year acting career.

In the throes of persistent pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas demonstrations in London in recent weeks, Laurence Fox had this to say:

Not only have the police been absent without leave when faced with violent religious extremism, they have shown their true colours as film after film surfaces of them removing the faces, and eradicating the memory of abducted women and children, a sight I thought I would never see in this city in my lifetime.

The public have become fearful to speak their mind as the consequences become ever more severe with each passing day. We are told to shut up as our country withers… This is a Britain at war with itself. We cannot and should not remain silent… There is no place for those calling for genocide on our streets… The police are purely a political force, akin to the Starsi, exercising the whims of a power-hungry, profiteering, and divisive mayor. The police are no longer fit for purpose. (Laurence Fox)

Let’s strip Laurence’s personality and his political party away. What are the facts? Jews in London are now going to school in fear, huge demonstrations calling for the extermination of the Jews are going ahead, and the police are taking down posters of the victims of the Hamas terrorist abductions. It seems to me that the police are supporting one racial group against another. This is madness!

How should we respond?

Our legal and justice systems in the West are broken. I think the first thing we must do is to acknowledge this. Secondly, I think every one of us should be prepared to take a stand, personally, whenever we see injustice and whenever we see bad laws. We, the people, by our turning a blind eye or by our acquiescence, give oxygen to the further collapse of our legal and justice systems.

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Image by Mona Tootoonchinia from Pixabay.