Hung(a)ry for justice: butchered in Budapest

Witnesses a plenty, according to Ruth Balint, described the brutalities endured while at the Aréna Road barracks. There are various references to Zentai’s regular participation in these beatings. One, Imre Zoltan, testified that in 1944, while in Budapest as a forced labourer, he was arrested and taken to the barracks “where at Béla Máder’s orders, Károly Zentai and Ferenc Érsek beat me up for hours with boxing gloves until I lost consciousness”. Other witnesses make similar claims concerning the pensioner from Perth.

On the night in question, November 8, 1944, József Monori, another officer assigned to the barracks, reported that he heard beatings going on behind closed doors; was woken up at around 11pm and told to harness a horse and carriage, where Nagy and Zentai brought down a corpse from the office, put it on the cart … and after a short ride to the banks of the Danube, the corpse was quickly dumped into the river. The three waited until the body sank due to the weights attached. The body was that of Peter Balázs.

Last Friday the Australian Federal Court found that the Home Affairs Minister's extradition decision was beyond his jurisdiction. After all, Hungary has not charged Zentai with anything. It merely wants to question him. Judge Neil McKerracher elaborated that a war crime was not “a qualifying extradition offence” for which Mr Zentai could be surrendered for extradition.

If the judge did not err in his decision then, Canberra, we have a problem. What will we do when, say, ASIO suspects that war criminals, say from Sudan - involved in the genocide of non Muslims - are living peacefully in Melbourne’s outer suburbs? Or former commanders of Myanmar’s forced labour camps are clicking up their heels in Sydney’s leafy upper north shore? Will Australia continue to offer a haven and archaic laws as a reply to a foreign government’s extradition request? Surely it’s time to renovate the law.

Unimpressed with the Home Affairs Minister’s behaviour, His Honour also found the Minister failed to properly consider that it would be "oppressive and incompatible with humanitarian considerations" to surrender Mr Zentai for extradition due to his age, ill health and the severity of sentence he faced. In short, even if Zentai could be extradited on the evidence presented, he shouldn’t be. After all, the message is clear: while age may not weary him, it will protect him from having to explain himself.

It was Baroness Thatcher who once articulated, "(that) if you have nothing else you have your principles." It’s advice Prime Minister Gillard would be wise to heed.

A leader, especially a new one like Prime Minister Julia Gillard, is beset by an array of issues, mostly domestic, with schools of sharks - from her left and her right - circling her office, smelling for the slightest hint of blood in the water.

Doubtless, Julia Gillard has principles too. Now, because she has been shoehorned into the Prime Minister’s office, it’s up to her to restore the electorate’s faith in Labor, starting by restoring our faith in a host of institutions, including border security, superannuation and our legal system.

Having addressed the first two in record time, she can now concentrate on the travesty concerning our legal system by focusing on Charles Zentai.

Media reports have been scant when informing the public on Charles Zentai. Unsurprising really. It’s true that some don’t give a hoot what happens to him. Then again, some are at a loss as to why His Honour found that the Minister of Home Affairs could not place the aged pensioner on the first plane to Budapest’s Ferihegy International Airport. To date, the Hungarians merely want to question Mr. Zentai. Must they elevate the request to a charge so that he can be extradited? Is the Australian law in this case too restrictive and thereby not serving the interest of justice? If His Honour was correct in his decision, should the existing law be changed and done so retrospectively? What is the downside and what is the upside of such a change?

What lessons are we teaching today’s young? What concept of justice are we handing down? What notion of memory are we transmitting to the next generation? After 70 years, is justice possible? Is it at all even relevant?

Atrocities, regardless of where and when they were committed, must be remembered. Because the burial of memory leads to contempt for justice. And contempt for justice can only lead to one place.

Play it again Adolf. Play it again.