The common good trumping individual rights

It is easy to multiply examples of individual rights being trumped in order to promote the community good. People who are suspected of committing serious crimes in Australia have their right to liberty violated by being detained for many years before they go to trial. Often they are acquitted and upon release don’t even get compensation. In war time we are prepared to engage in conduct that we know will cause the death of many civilians, in order to achieve ultimate victory.

Pressured by Indigenous protests, the Beattie Government allowed its assessment of the common good to trump Hurley’s rights. But did it correctly weigh all the relevant considerations?

The answer is almost certainly no. The pressure to violate due process in Chris Hurley’s case was not as intense as in the King matter. Protests against the DPP decision were vocal and passionate, but they did not involve large-scale acts of civil disobedience.

This disquiet in the Indigenous community as a result of the DPP’s decision must be balanced against the adverse consequences stemming from abandoning long established criminal process protocols. The downside includes the fact the authority of the Office of the DPP is now gravely diminished and there is enormous strain on the relationship between the police and the government.

The preferable way to deal with the Indigenous unrest following the decision to clear Hurley was for the government to finally redress the injustices that inhere in the criminal justice system which disproportionately operate against the Indigenous population.

The revolt by the Indigenous community was not solely attributable to the merits of the DPP’s decision. This was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. And rightly so. It is indecent in the extreme that Indigenous Australians are imprisoned at a rate 13 times higher than the general population.

Rather than undermining what remains of the integrity of the criminal justice system by charging Hurley, the Queensland government should have addressed the system’s serious shortcomings. By unnecessarily flouting the normal functioning of the criminal justice system, the principal message that the government has conveyed is that if enough people yell loudly enough, “special” processes will be instituted.

The police have heeded this message and hence their decision to march on Parliament house is predictable. History shows that this won’t be effective in preventing Hurley facing a jury - unless of course, the police go on strike, thereby threatening community safety, then the government will really have some balancing to do.