Counter-terrorism and information: The NSI Act, fair trials, and open, accountable government
Counter-terrorism and information: The NSI Act, fair trials, and open, accountable government
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DOI：
10.1080/10304312.2011.554059
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发表时间：
2011-04
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
M. Rix
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Rix
本文研究了澳大利亚2004年国家安全信息（刑事和民事诉讼）法案（Cth） （NSI法案），重点关注其保护国家安全信息的规定。调查强调了法案中对“国家安全”和“信息”的广泛定义，并考虑了法案规定的在联邦民事和刑事诉讼中保护所谓“安全敏感”信息的措施。然后，本文探讨了定义和措施对恐怖主义案件中嫌疑人接受公平审判的前景的影响。在这里，本文强调了该法案对法律受助人聘请自己选择的法律代理人的权利的严重限制。然后将这些限制与在某些可比司法管辖区获得的限制进行比较。《国家安全保障法》的定义和措施限制了恐怖主义嫌疑人获得公正审判的机会，其重要性远远超出了这个非常严重的问题，甚至涉及更深层次的问题。这些问题涉及恐怖主义案件处理的保密性和缺乏透明度，信息分类和保护程序的不透明性，以及由于缺乏外部独立审查渠道，政治行政部门和国家安全机构可能会有倾向性地或不当地使用信息。因此，这些担忧的核心是政府及其下属机构的问责制和诚信问题。本文最后一部分以穆罕默德·哈尼夫（Mohamed Haneef）的经历作为案例研究，调查了辩护律师、媒体和其他独立当事方在促进公众监督恐怖主义调查和审判行为以及揭露政治行政部门有时不当使用受保护信息以试图影响这些案件的行为方面可以发挥的重要作用。
This paper investigates Australia's National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 (Cth) (NSI Act) focusing on its provisions for protecting national security information. The investigation highlights the broad and encompassing definitions of ‘national security’ and ‘information’ used in the Act and considers the measures it prescribes for the protection of so-called ‘security sensitive’ information in Federal civil and criminal proceedings. The paper then examines the implications of the definitions and measures for a suspect's prospects of receiving a fair trial in terrorism cases. Here, the paper highlights the serious restrictions the Act places on a legally-aided person's right to engage a legal representative of their own choosing. These restrictions are then compared with those obtaining in some comparable jurisdictions. As important as the NSI Act's definitions and measures are for the way in which they limit a terrorism suspect's chances of a fair trial, their significance extends well beyond this very serious issue to even deeper concerns. These relate to the secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding the conduct of terrorism cases, the opaqueness of the processes for classifying and protecting information, and the potential for tendentious or improper use of information by the political executive and national security agencies enabled by the dearth of avenues for external, independent scrutiny. At the core of these concerns, then, are issues of the accountability and integrity of the government and of the agencies under its direction. Using the experience of Mohamed Haneef as a case study, the final section of the paper investigates the important role that defence counsel, the media, and other independent parties can play in facilitating public scrutiny of the conduct of terrorism investigations and trials and in exposing the improper use sometimes made of protected information by the political executive in attempting to influence the conduct of these cases.