Bitter-sweet win for activists.

The Network Against Prohibition had a bitter-sweet victory in the Northern Territory Supreme Court yesterday, after its appeal against sentencing was upheld by Justice Southwood.

Two of the last four “parliament invaders” of May, 2002, Ema Birkeland-Corro and Stuart Highway, had their five-month jail terms reduced and fully suspended.

But the other two, Rob Inder-Smith and Ishmael Lambe, must serve a month.

While Highway and Corro walked free, the NAP regards conditions imposed upon them by Justice Southwood as harsh and unfair.

They are not allowed to associate with each other, or their co-appellants, for two years. In January, 2006, Chief Justice Brian Martin made a similar demand of another one of the nine people who walked into the NT Legislative Assembly, Scott White.

White’s sentence was also suspended.

The non-violent protest, staged by NAP to oppose the Martin Government’s widely discredited US-drafted “Drug House” laws, was described by then Speaker Lorraine Braham as an invasion.
Though not the first time the NT Parliament has been disrupted, it was the first time charges have been laid.

NAP says the case began as a political trial and degenerated into farce, when the NT Government pursued the activists through the higher courts as they represented themselves during successive appeals.

The result would have left NAP’s founder, Gary Meyerhoff, with mixed emotions. Meyerhoff, who passed away last October with an AIDS-related illness, was also gaoled for his role in the parliamentary walk-in, and maintained that the charge - intentionally disrupting the Legislative Assembly while it was in progress - was trumped-up and politically motivated.

He said it was laid because it embarrassed the Martin Labor Government.

Outside the court, Inder-Smith said he was relieved for Highway and Corro, but added that they should never have been charged.

“We were simply trying to prevent the commission of a wrongful act,” Inder-Smith, 47, said. Referring to an apology mooted by Justice Southwood last week, but rejected by he and Highway, Inder-Smith said it was the NT Government that should be apologising for “their stupid drug laws”.

The trial was a milestone in NT criminal justice history.

Soon after NAP’s formation in 2002, a series of well-publicised “actions” incurred the wrath of police, politicians and the judiciary, who responded by laying more than 120 criminal charges, most of which were either dismissed or unsuccessful. They included “failing to cease to loiter”, “bill pasting” and “criminal damage”.

Meyerhoff was subjected to threats of violence by the police, one of whom told him during a drug raid on somebody’s flat that he was lucky they didn’t give him a “flogging” every time they came across him.

About the same time, the Ombudsman issued a stinging report stating that the 27-year-old had been wrongfully arrested during his group’s first “smoke-in”, in Raintree Park, staged to publicise human rights and the Drug House laws.

At the tumultuous sixth smoke-in, in October, 2002, police disrupted a peaceful demonstration, making five arrests.

Highway served three months in Berrimah in 2005-06 for his alleged role in the affray.

White and Inder-Smith were harassed one night by a police van that tailed them during a 30-minute drive through the eastern suburbs that included a bizarre five-lap chase through the two Nightcliff round-abouts.

When both vehicles were parked, Inder-Smith approached the driver of the police van to ask why they were being pursued.

He says the driver wound up his window and drove off.

In November, 2004, while free on bail, he, Highway and Meyerhoff were arrested late at night and wrongfully gaoled for two days because of a Supreme Court clerical error.

The trio tried to seek compensation but then Attorney-General Peter Toyne refused, telling them to await the outcome of the trial.

Justice Southwood said he would take this into account when handing down his final re-sentencing of Mr Inder-Smith on Tuesday, February 27.

Legally, the case has been historic for several reasons.

Not only is it one of the longest-running in NT history, its political nature has grave significance for political and human rights activists.

Before the Magistrates Court began in October, 2002, the defendants pulled off a coup by successfully summonsing nine of the sitting members, including chief Minister Clare Martin, her deputy Syd Stirling and Mr Toyne, who were forced into the witness box to be cross-examined.

Their repeated claims that the protesters had “run” into and through the legislative chamber were contradicted by the Parliamentary video of the incident, prompting Ms Martin to apologise to NAP in court for exaggerating her evidence.

For Highway and Corro, yesterday was the end of a stressful five years that has seen them harassed by police and hauled through the courts for their human rights beliefs.

Inder-Smith said he was considering an appeal in the trial that has almost universally been ignored by the interstate media.