Uncivilised rule of law

The idea that a state legislature would enact laws that target the sentences of a specific group of identifiable prisoners (“Justice withheld”, September 17-23) is contrary to the separation of powers principle in the constitution. Parliamentary supremacy over the executive and judicial arms of government was never intended to allow politicians to pass sentences directed at particular convicts. Otherwise we have Russian justice where the judges hand down sentences on individuals based on Vladimir Putin’s assessment of their offences. The result is brutal and autocratic punishment out of all proportion to the crimes. After the High Court established the principle in Kable that preventative detention orders undermine the integrity of the courts, the

Carr Labor government successfully passed legislation that said all prisoners who were the subject of a non-release recommendation by the trial judge were to remain in prison for the remaining terms of their able-bodied lives. Two juvenile offenders, Bronson Blessington and Matthew Elliott, aged 14 and 16 years respectively at the time of their crimes in 1988, were part of this cohort. They have now served 34 years in jail. Given their good behaviour in prison and their good health, Blessington and Elliott could spend decades more in prison for crimes that carried an average of 12 to 15 years in 1988 when they were jailed. Unjust punishment on this scale is unimaginable in a civilised common law country bound by the rule of law.

– Peter Breen, Bellingen, NSW