No Day in Court for You.
Image SourceWhat the hell is with labor and censorship??? Our good old Captain Bligh just goes from strength to strength - suggesting police have the power to slap people with on-the-spot fines of $100 per hit for swearing. This is my favorite part of the article:
Ms Bligh said the move would increase efficiency, save time and fast-track more important matters in the courts by stopping minor public nuisance offenders from clogging the justice system.
Yes indeed, we wouldn't want people frivolously having their day in court for a frivolous offence do we?
So where is an exhaustive list of "Swear Words"? Will I be charged for sitting at a restaurant and saying "that was a bloody good meal"?
Well Frak that.
(Further to my Buzz response)
ReplyDeleteIt's worth pointing out that this is not a new offence. What she's talking about is rather than citing you and making you show up in court (complete with all the expenses that entails for everyone) the cops can now issue an on-the-spot fine. You can still contest these in court, the same way you can contest a speeding ticket or an on-the-spot fine for littering. However, since most of these are trivial and effectively no-contest events (less than 1% appealed according to the article), there's no need for them to go through court every time.
If you have a problem with the police being able to issue on-the-spot fines, then you have a problem with a lot of other minor offences that the police can issue them for as well.
If you have a problem with "swearing" being an offence at all, well, verbally abusing a police officer has been an offence for some time now too.
Is it possible that the police will abuse this? Certainly. Is it likely? Who knows. It's not like the Queensland police have a great reputation already. Police in the past may have held back on issuing a citation for this offence because of the paperwork it entailed, and so now, with the reduced work required, may be more likely to record it - so in other words, in the past people who committed a crime (if you accept swearing at a police office is a crime) were getting away with it because it was too much work to prosecute. This may mean that numbers for this offence will increase, but to a level that realistically they would have been all along.
It is unlikely that police officers will whip out the book every time they hear someone curse when they stub their toe. It's even unlikely to be abused in the way that they describe in the article (teens and homeless) as (in my opinion) most officers walking the beat don't want that trouble. Do people really think officers are making some commission or get rewards for the number of tickets issued? And even if they were, those two groups are probably the least likely to pay such fines (or to give legit ID information to allow such fines to be followed up).
What you would need to know to may any judgement about this is a couple of things: How many times was this offence issued in isolation (as in, not in conjunction with other court-appearance-required offences)? What sort of people are already being hit with this offence? And what options are available to an officer when confronted by someone they wish to issue this offence to who refuses to (or is unable to) supply ID?
Concerns about police powers are valid, and certainly this one leaves room for abuse. This only re-enforces my belief that you should probably record in some form as completely as is possible any contact you have with the authorities. It's highly likely they already are as well.
However, Premier Bligh is saving your state money by reducing court costs for an offence that is already on the books, and takes up court time that is rarely warranted as hardly anyone contests the offence. If you have a problem with the offence, it is unlikely that Premier Bligh is the person who put it there; it will have been there a long time already. You may have very good reasons to dislike her management of the state, but it is unlikely that this is one to get upset about.
One thing is true though: ALWAYS read between the lines of news.corp supplied information.
And to those who want to nit-pick my wall-o-text there and say "There's a difference between 'verbal abuse of a police officer' and 'citation for swearing'!" Yes there is. But my point remains; obscenity or public decency laws have been around longer than Australian Law (and have some odd quirks because of it - blasphemy as a state crime, anyone?).
ReplyDeleteBut even the newer versions of these sort of laws come in existence because the politicians, not the police, have wanted ways to control undesirable groups, whether they be rebellious workers or rebellious teens. People (with more time on their hands than they should rightly have) complain about "youths wandering the street at night" and "lingering at street corners smoking and swearing", demanding that the powers that be "do something about it". So the government reacts and since you can't make it a crime to be young in public (though they've tried) and it's already a crime to buy ciggies underage, it becomes a crime to swear in public.
Or, following a similar twisted logic path, it becomes a crime in NSW to possess a laser pointer in public without "good reason" (Summary Offences and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Laser Pointers) Bill 2008 (NSW) details here: http://www.caslon.com.au/censorshipguide23.htm)
Government is reactionary, and will always respond to the squeaky wheel. These laws come about not because the police desire more power (they already have enough to do damage, they don't need more) but because we, the silent majority, have let the noisy, whiny, won't-somebody-PLEEEASE-think-of-the-children, scared-of-their-shadows types control the discussion with our government.
And that's our fault.
So the police can issue $100 on-the-spot fines for swearing... they can fine you without presenting any evidence to a courtroom. Which words are on the list and which aren't? What measures are in place to prevent this law from being abused?
ReplyDelete"So the police can issue $100 on-the-spot fines for swearing... they can fine you without presenting any evidence to a courtroom."
ReplyDeleteYes. In the same way that they can issue an on-the-spot fine for littering. Or an on-the-spot fine for not wearing a helmet when on a pushie. Or an on-the-spot fine for smoking in your car with kids in there. Or an on-the-spot fine for speeding. Or ... you get the point. There are many, many, laws on the books that allow police and other officers of the state to issue fines without requiring a court appearance to "present evidence". Just like the presumption of innocence when before a court of law, there is also the presumption that the officer of the court and state are following the law and applying it justly.
Additionally, reports are that a lot of police officers these days are or can be wired for recording. Be careful when demanding they prove you were swearing, they just might be able to.
"Which words are on the list and which aren't? " Well, this is a grey area, but again, your problem isn't with this specific law. All "public decency" laws have this problem. You can't list swear words, because they change and morph dramatically over time. Where "bloody" and "bugger" used to be considered bad, they now get used in advertising campaigns. Usually the "reasonable person" rules apply to what counts as appropriate clothing, behavior and language. Again, there are many other laws that use this standard, so this law is not the thin end of the wedge or the straw that will break the camel's back or whatever other cliché you would like to use.
"What measures are in place to prevent this law from being abused?" Only the same measures that are in place to stop any other law being abused. You can protest/appeal the fine in court, just like any of the other fines. But was said up at the very beginning, only 1% of people bother to appeal it even when they are required to go to court.
As I keep saying: changing this law from a court required appearance to an on the spot fine saves money, and does not in any real sense encroach on your rights any more or less than previously. The law already existed, people were already being prosecuted for it, and 99% the court appearance was a complete waste of time for everyone involved and a massive waste of our taxpayer-funded resources. This change, within that context, is a Good Thing.