Media Alert: Protest over shock Bali decision

THE last four “parliament invaders” of 2002 will have their final day in court on Monday (Feb 12) when Justice Trevor Riley hears argument for why they should not be jailed.

Northern Territory Legal Aid lawyer Ian Read will tell the Northern Territory Supreme Court that the defendants have not re-offended since they and six others stormed the NT Legislative Assembly while it was in session, and that they are not a threat to the community.

Appealing against their sentences will be Stuart Highway, Rob Inder-Smith and Ema Birkeland-Corro.

On May 14, 2002, the four and six others smuggled placards into parliament and disrupted debate for about five minutes to protest the widely discredited “Drug House” legislation, which was being passed.

The parliament invasion, as the press labeled it, resulted in tighter security at Parliament House. All the activists were found guilty in Darwin Magistrates Court later that year, with most being dealt with by Magistrate Dick Wallace.

Self-represented, Highway and Inder-Smith - members of the controversial, revolutionary drug law-reform group the Network Against Prohibition - exhausted their avenues of appeal late last year when they tried unsuccessfully to have their case taken to the High Court of Australia.

The four had pleaded not guilty on the grounds that the Magistrate’s Court could not hear the charge, intentionally disturbing the Legislative Assembly while it is in session.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of three years’ jail. It was Queensland's equivalent of the same law, Section 61a, that Premier Peter Beattie criticised in his parliament last year.

The four charged in the Territory were given jail terms of up to five months. A fifth co-defendant, the NAP’s founder Gary Meyerhoff, died last October of an AIDS-related illness, in Perth.

Meyerhoff, who had been driving NAP's legal defence, was wrongfully imprisoned with Highway and Inder-Smith for two days after an administration error in late 2004, while they were free on bail and while the appeals process was still in train.

The trio demanded to be compensated but Attorney-General Peter Toyne refused and told them to await the outcome of the hearing.

They had appealed the original decision in the NT Court of Appeal before Justice David Angel and then the Full Bench.

The case, one of the longest-running in NT history, has been closely watched by the legal fraternity which was shocked that Magistrate Wallace should impose jail terms.

A sixth man, Scott Richard White, who moved to Tasmania soon after the alleged offence, was given a fully suspended sentence by Chief Justice Brian Martin last year.

The accused say the charge was politically motivated because of the embarrassment their protest caused the Martin Labor Government. The embarrassment was heightened when the NAP succeeded in getting nine sitting members, including Chief Minister Clare Martin, into the witness dock. Also cross-examined by the activists were Toyne and deputy Chief Minister Syd Sterling.

Highway served three months in Berrimah in 2005/06 for allegedly smashing a police van windscreen at the notorious “sixth smoke-in” in Raintree Park. Because Mr Riley was Highway’s sentencing judge, the group sought to have him stand himself down.

But Mr Read says they are insufficient grounds and that Monday’s hearing will go ahead.

He said the crime did not warrant jail time.

Since its formation in March, 2002, NAP has faced more than 100 charges, most of which were either dismissed or returned not-guilty findings

Early last year, Darwin City Council pursued Meyerhoff into the Supreme Court, where he unsuccessfully tried to beat a charge of criminal damage caused by bill-pasting.