The injustice of remand !

Today's Illawarra Mercury carries the story of Edward Dutton ( 53 ), the man behind the $ 243 million Port Kembla Soybean biodiesel plant. It is a story that causes some disquiet at the injustice of our prison remand system.

Mr Dutton was a South African opposed to that nation's apartheid system of separate development for black and white citizens. He earned the enmity of his government and he was charged with what he believes were trumped up fraud allegations in 1995.

Fearing that he would not receive a fair trial he moved to Australia and in 1996 the South African government launched extradition proceedings. Mr Dutton was arrested - and spent the next five years in an Australian prison.

The South African government failed to satisfy an Australian judge on the quality of the evidence put before his court and the extradition was rejected, but Dutton remained in prison awaiting new appeals. Eventually the South African government dropped the extradition application - and the present South African government has no case against him.

There is no statute of limitations on remand in this country - and remand ignores the basic foundation of the justice system - Habeas Corpus - the right for an accused to be promptly put before a court and tried to determine the allegations upon which he or she were arrested.

The fact that a prisoner can languish for years on remand while the prosecution delays preparing it's case - and then can simply drop the charges and walk away whistling Dixie - is neither justice being done or being seen to be done !

There is no compensation for a person so imprisoned. In fact, the law as it now stands opens the door for political corruption and the use of remand to silence a person irritating the government with awkward questions.

It is time a strict statute of limitations applied. The prosecution should be required to make it's case in adequate time - or the remanded prisoner walks free - and that should equally apply to foreign jurisdictions or local prosecutors !

And a person held in prison for an accusation that fails to proceed should be eligible for at least loss wages for the time incarcerated.

Justice is - after all - a two edged sword ! It seems that in the case of remand one side of that blade is deliberately blunt !