BACKGROUND TO THE TRIAL.
On the 22nd of November 2006, seditioncharter.org prosecuted the Commonwealth of Australia in a moot court on the forecourt and footpath outside the County Court of Victoria as to whether any of the Articles, (Article 1-30) contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, have been intentionally disregarded or violated by the Howard led Coalition government.
The court case raised questions about a number of fundamental rights and liberties that have been legislated away by the Coalition government and a pliant Opposition during the past decade. Conducting the trial on the forecourt and footpath outside the County Court of Victoria openly challenged the power a private corporation running a public institution is able to exercise over citizens. The Victorian County Court building is owned by a private corporation (Liberty Group) which leases the courts to the Victorian State government and any other group that is able to afford the cost of a room - except seditioncharter.org who were refused a room because we are a �political� group. To further complicate the issue, this private corporation claims to own the forecourt which is open space that abuts on a public footpath and refuses to let citizens gather in this space because it is deemed to be private property. [Convenor, Dr Joseph Toscano]
the Sedition Act [2005] which are Part of Schedule 7 of the draft laws (p75) outline the following: �In this section: seditious intention means an intention to effect any of the following purposes: (a) to bring the Sovereign into hatred or contempt; (b) to urge disaffection against the following: (i) the Constitution; (ii) the Government of the Commonwealth; (iii) either House of the Parliament; (c) to urge another person to attempt, otherwise than by lawful means, to procure a change to any matter established by law in the Commonwealth; (d) to promote feelings of ill-will or hostility between different groups so as to threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.
INTRODUCTION (John Collins)
NOTES ON SEDITION
"You, my friend - a citizen of the great city of Athens, famous for its culture and power - are you not ashamed of heaping up the largest amount of money and status and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth."? [Socrates]
Sedition in its modern meaning first appeared in the Elizabethan Era (c. 1590) as the "notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constitued authority".
Famous people charged with sedition - SOCRATES, JESUS, THOMAS PAINE, PETER LALOR, GHANDI, NELSON MANDELA
what they had in common:
- they were all a thorn in the side of Authority
- they all believed that the greater good and the greater humanity which was somehow linked to the notion of JUSTICE
- they opposed leaders who said one thing and did the opposite, who stood up in public and told lies, encouraged bigotry and violence in order to rule more easily.
- they were all charged with sedition because they were a THREAT to the powerful and to the corrupt current order.
- they SUBVERTED the current order and actively encouraged others to do so.
- they were all ENEMIES OF THE STATE! The State is not able to tolerate people who act with a conscience because the State has no conscience. In the words of Emerson; "every actual State is corrupt, men shouldn't obey the laws too well!"
- it is amazing that we live in a society which applauds these as great thinkers/visionaries, yet few actually follow their example. Instead we follow the dictates of the State, rather than our own conscience.
2. UDHR general observations
- The UDHR was a an attempt to define Universal principles which express "the highest aspiration of the common people", which have today become the underpinning foundations of International Law.
- the real importance of documents such as the UDHR, (Geneva Conventions, Nuremberg etc) are not the documents themselves but the REASON and the CONTEXT in which they came into existence; they were drafted after WWII as an attempt to prevent the re-emergence of regimes which had cynically used racism, patriotism, or any other convenient division to co-opt their own populations into an aggressive militarist State. We forget this at our own peril.
- what was common to all these regimes was the undermining of democratic intitutions due to the concentration of political, informational, military, economic and religious power.
- human rights cannot be given by any State or Government from above, they can only be fought for by citizens continually examining and challenging institutions of elite power. To not do so is an abrigation of our duty as citizens.
- rights and liberties have been won through generations of struggle against the excesses of State and private power. When democratic institutions (both domestic and international) are undermined by those in positions of authority then we are in danger of regressing to a scenario which existed prior to WWII or perhaps something even worse. "Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people." [Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism].
- Human rights cannot be seen as something apart from democracy. Any government or elite interest which has undermined democracy will also have undermined human rights.
- human rights can't be extended without extending the spirit of universal brotherhood and international co-operation. Govmts which have broken and undermined intnl agreements and treaties will be guilty of undermining human rights.
- in a democratic society the onus of proof should rest upon an institution to prove that it has a right to exist, and the criteria should be whether that institution uses democratic principles and whether it serves the public good. If an institution fails to pass these basic standards it should be dismantled or reformed.
- the battle for human rights is not constrained by state boundaries. it is effectively 'stateless'. Israel-Palestine, international labor struggles and Refugee struggles are a few aexamles of this tendency.
- the struggle for human liberation is an ongoing process which involves the free exchange of ideas - no single group or institution, whether it be religious, state, government, or economic system, has the right to halt that struggle. no single group or institution can have a monopoly on the idea of 'progress'. TO DO SO IS NOT ONLY THE HEIGHT OF ARROGANCE BUT IS A DIRECT AFRONT TO HUMANITY ITSELF.