Kieran Pender

'Shooting the messengers: How the Collaery case stains our democracy' by Kieran Pender

April 2022, no. 441 • 23 March 2022

On the first day of March this year, Scott Morrison declared his commitment to democratic principles. ‘My government will never be backward when it comes to standing up for Australia’s national interests and standing up for liberal democracy in today’s world,’ the prime minister told reporters. ‘We can’t be absent when it comes to standing up for those important principles.’ It was a ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Law in a Time of Crisis' by Jonathan Sumption

January–February 2022, no. 439 • 22 December 2021

When World War II began, a defence regulation was issued in Great Britain that enabled the home secretary to imprison anyone who they reasonably believed had hostile associations. One such interned individual, Robert Liversidge, objected to his detention and challenged the validity of the home secretary’s decision. In the subsequent case, Liversidge v Anderson, the House of Lords adopted a defer ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Open Minds: Academic freedom and freedom of speech in Australia' by Carolyn Evans and Adrienne Stone with Jade Roberts

April 2021, no. 430 • 23 March 2021

Across the Anglosphere, academic freedom is in crisis. That, at least, is the conclusion one draws from reading conservative newspapers and listening to right-wing politicians. Boris Johnson’s government, concerned about ‘unacceptable silencing and censoring on campuses’, recently announced plans to appoint a ‘free speech champion’ for British universities. In 2019, Donald Trump signed a ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks exposés' edited by Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau

January–February 2021, no. 428 • 16 December 2020

At the time of writing, Julian Assange – an Australian citizen – is detained at Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in Thamesmead on the outskirts of London. Belmarsh is a high-security facility; Assange’s fellow inmates are terrorists, murderers, and rapists. The WikiLeaks founder is being held in solitary confinement, permitted out of his cell for just one hour each day. His crime? Assange is ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Fake Law: The truth about justice in an age of lies' by The Secret Barrister

December 2020, no. 427 • 25 November 2020

The timing was apt. In September, Fake Law: The truth about justice in an age of lies – written by pseudonymous British writer ‘The Secret Barrister’ – was published in Australia. The same month, President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States following the untimely death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. From two legal systems that have historically infl ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'The Road' by John Martinkus and 'Too Close to Ignore' edited by Mark Moran and Jodie Curth-Bibb

September 2020, no. 424 • 21 August 2020

It is a damning – if not altogether surprising – indictment on our public discourse that the average Australian knows far more about political and social developments on the other side of the world than about those occurring in our ‘near abroad’. It takes just fifteen minutes to travel in a dinghy from the northern most island in the Torres Strait to Papua New Guinea. The flight from Darwi ... (read more)

'Law’s #MeToo moment: Effecting change in the legal profession' by Kieran Pender

August 2020, no. 423 • 27 July 2020

There is a senior partner at my firm who famously harasses young women particularly when he has been drinking at social events. I was groped on two separate occasions. Nothing was done about it the first time I reported it. I did not report it the second time. A barrister attempted to rape me after a conference. I successfully fought him off – dress torn, bruised. I did not report it. My caree ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Law in War: Freedom and restriction in Australia during the Great War' by Catherine Bond

June–July 2020, no. 422 • 26 May 2020

As with many authors, Covid-19 forced Catherine Bond to cancel the launch event for her new book. But unlike most authors’ work, the contemporary relevance of Bond’s latest book has been considerably heightened by the ongoing pandemic. Indeed, in the midst of this crisis it is hard to imagine a historical text timelier than Law in War: Freedom and restriction in Australia during the Great War. ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an age of fraud' by Tom Mueller

May 2020, no. 421 • 27 April 2020

Whistleblowing has a long history. The Ancient Greeks had a term for it: parrhēsia, or fearless speech. In the seventh century, a British king introduced the world’s first whistleblowing law, encouraging his citizens to report those who worked on the Sabbath. Ever since the phrase ‘whistleblower’ was coined in the 1970s, the concept has gained renewed salience. In an era of widespread fraud ... (read more)

Kieran Pender reviews 'Secret: The making of Australia’s security state' by Brian Toohey

January–February 2020, no. 418 • 16 December 2019

Cass Sunstein, a noted American constitutional scholar, once lamented: ‘The notion that the government may control information at its source is at odds with the idea that the purpose of a system of free expression is to control the conduct of representatives.’ In a liberal democracy – supposedly of the people, by the people, for the people – political opacity is inconsistent with the centr ... (read more)