The Parliament Invasion Saga Continues
Scott White is committed to stand trial in the NT Supreme Court
Report on day one of this round of Scott's proceedings
1st December 2003 (World AIDS Day)
By NAP court reporter
The prosecution kicked an own-goal in the Darwin Magistrates Court today, when it revealed it did not have a key piece of evidence in the trial of activist Scott White.
White, 29, is one of the Network Against Prohibitionists charged with disrupting the Northern Territory’s Legislative Assembly while it was in session, in May, 2002.
The Parliamentary video of what the local press tagged an “invasion’’ is the prosecution’s number one exhibit.
But when asked to play the footage to Magistrate David Loadman, embarrassed police prosecutor Karen Sanderson said the tape was “missing”.
The admission was a new low of ineptitude in the prosecution case against NAP. White, the “ninth man’’ in the controversial and lengthy trial, faces a jail term for his role in the non-violent protest. Earlier this year, five of his co-defendants were jailed for up to five months, but were released later on bail.
White, like the other NAP members, is representing himself. When informed that the original tape was unavailable, he exercised his right to refuse to continue in the case.
Told by Magistrate David Loadman that he could leave proceedings, he did, storming out of the courtroom and dashing over to the NT Legal Aid Commission to file an application for advice.
On his return to court, he was taken into custody and his bail revoked.
It was an unexpected turn for the autocratic – something in which Magistrate Loadman seems to specialise. During a separate case involving a young woman, Ema Corro who also entered parliament, he gave the order that she be taken into custody for contempt of court.
For its part, the prosecution’s latest failure is part of a litany of blunders.
The unusual case – Australian parliaments have been disrupted before, but this is the first time anybody has been charged – has exposed the NT’s criminal justice system for what it is – corrupt, incestuous and administered by would-be dictators.
From small-minded members of the NT Police Service to the courthouse’s front-counter staff who play games with the public, NAP has cut through to the underbelly of what is loosely described as the administration of justice.
White, who was extradited from his new home in Tasmania for the hearing, is determined not to play into the plutocrats’ hands.
He and his co-defendants believe drug law-reform is one of the most pressing issues facing modern societies and that illicit drug-use should be brought into the open and debated sensibly. With these issues foremost in their minds, they participated in the incident with which they have been charged.
NAP says the parliamentary video tape has been tampered with. That the prosecution could not produce the original when asked, is further grounds for appeal in the Supreme Court.
Earlier, Magistrate Loadman, with his usual flamboyant arrogance, refused White’s requests to adjourn the matter.
Outside the court, NAP co-ordinator Gary Meyerhoff said the situation was a farce.
“We’ve known all along we don’t stand a chance of a fair trial in the Northern Territory,’’ he said.
Unusually, Loadman, who was supposed to be guiding Scott, who is representing himself was providing assistance to prosecutor Sanderson by telling her when to object.
By challenging legal proceedings at every stage, NAP has revealed comprehensively the NT’s hard-line approach to drugs and drug law-reform.
By extension, the NT is being seen for what it is – a police state.
NT judges and magistrates, on $150,000-a-year-plus salaries, continue to play their unstated role in the war on drugs.
Evidence of the ignorance in which NT judges and magistrates wallow, was given in the Supreme Court by Justice Bailey recently.
Unsolicited, he told the court that drugs were “stupid’’, during one of NAP’s several appeals for various charges.
Other members of the NT judiciary such as Justices Thomas and Mildren have described cannabis as “evil’’. Not only is this criminally stupid for people of their standing in the community but, even more worryingly, it reflects the entrenched ignorance of the high and mighty.
It is clear that judges magistrates and politicians in the NT are laws unto themselves.
**Note** Scott was released later that day and has now been committed for Trial in the NT Supreme Court. They still can't find the original Hansard video.
