Two sides of a coin.
Oct. 2nd, 2008 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoThe current meme, inspired by certain events in the USA, is to name your favourite US Supreme Court Case. I've gone for the Miranda v. Arizona one, because most of us would know about it from the recital of an arrested suspects rights from 1001 tv cop shows.
Basically, the person arrested must be informed that they may stay silent if they wish, and they have the right to legal representation, which will be provided by the court if you can't afford your own. Like all rules, it gets bent, battered, misued and turned into a token case - but at least you get something.
Mind you, from the Australian High Court comes the wonderful one of R v Carter; ex parte Kisch, where the court ruled that Gaelic is not a European language. You might wonder why this was important. Simply put, the Government in its infinite wisdom (you can stop laughing now) stated that if you wished to enter Australia as an immigrant, you had to be literate in a European language. Alfred Deacon, our second Prime Minister, stated himself "The Bill incidentally may exclude, in some few cases, white-skinned people, but it is not intended to exclude qualified European immigrants who come here to make their homes amongst us and who, whether they pass the test or not, we shall be glad to welcome".
While this was ostensibly to make sure that we had a higher class of immigrant, it was of course abused shockingly to bar people whom the Government didn't want it. In this particular case, Kisch, a multilingual Czech, was tested in a language (Gaelic) that he couldn't have know.
Basically, the person arrested must be informed that they may stay silent if they wish, and they have the right to legal representation, which will be provided by the court if you can't afford your own. Like all rules, it gets bent, battered, misued and turned into a token case - but at least you get something.
Mind you, from the Australian High Court comes the wonderful one of R v Carter; ex parte Kisch, where the court ruled that Gaelic is not a European language. You might wonder why this was important. Simply put, the Government in its infinite wisdom (you can stop laughing now) stated that if you wished to enter Australia as an immigrant, you had to be literate in a European language. Alfred Deacon, our second Prime Minister, stated himself "The Bill incidentally may exclude, in some few cases, white-skinned people, but it is not intended to exclude qualified European immigrants who come here to make their homes amongst us and who, whether they pass the test or not, we shall be glad to welcome".
While this was ostensibly to make sure that we had a higher class of immigrant, it was of course abused shockingly to bar people whom the Government didn't want it. In this particular case, Kisch, a multilingual Czech, was tested in a language (Gaelic) that he couldn't have know.
