General Information

Phone seizures, data protection

See also Stop and Search guide, and for more GrapheneOS phone information.

AI quick search results:

New South Wales Police have been granted powers to access and download phone content on the beat, targeting devices that facilitate encrypted communication. While GrapheneOS on Google Pixel devices offers robust privacy protections, it cannot guarantee immunity against physical device seizure if the Read article

Posted by Jillian in General Information

Three rights every man and woman can rely on when dealing with a government agency

 

A right to privacy

Since June 2025, every man and woman in Australia has held a direct statutory right to protection from serious invasions of privacy (aside from common law right), as now there is a new tort inserted into the Privacy Act 1988. It applies where a man or woman’s seclusion has been intruded upon, or their information … Read article

Posted by Jillian in General Information

He Who Asks Questions Maketh Not a Sovereign Citizen

There is a peculiar modern reflex in which any man or woman who asks a government agency, politely, in writing, to show its authority, is promptly issued a diagnosis. Not a legal diagnosis. A social one. “Sovereign citizen,” they are told, usually by someone who has never read the Act in question and is relying entirely on vibes.

It is … Read article

Posted by Jillian in General Information

Kioa v West (1985) 159 CLR 550; [1985] HCA 81

Case name: Kioa v West
Full title: Kioa and Others v Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and Another Citation: (1985) 159 CLR 550; [1985] HCA 81 Court: High Court of Australia
Decided: 18 December 1985
Bench: Gibbs CJ, Mason, Wilson, Brennan and Deane JJ
AustLII link: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1985/81.html

Area of law: Administrative law, natural justice and procedural fairness, deportation decisions.… Read article

Posted by Jillian in Case law, General Information

Coe v Commonwealth (1979) 53 ALJR 403; 24 ALR 118

https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1979/68.html
See also A Matter of Precedent

On this page: Revised Statement of Claim

Formal Details

Full case name: Coe v The Commonwealth of Australia and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Heard in Sydney, 24 October 1978. Decided 5 April 1979. Bench: Gibbs, Jacobs, Murphy, and Aickin JJ, four justices only, not … Read article

Posted by Jillian in Case law, Courts, General Information

A Matter of Precedent

Fiat justitia ruat caelum — let justice be done though the heavens fall: a formula demanding that a legal question be examined on its merits, whatever the examination might disturb.

See also Coe v Commonwealth (1979)

A Matter of Precedent: What Olivia Barr’s Article Invites Australian Law to Examine

The Narrow Claim, Stated Precisely

Associate Professor Olivia Barr’s article, “A … Read article

Posted by Jillian in Case law, General Information

The Griffith Code

Ex parvis magna — great things grow from small beginnings: apt for a code that began as one judge’s review of a fragmented body of law.

The Griffith Code: Origins and Application Across Australia

A Judge’s Solution to Scattered Law

In 1893, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith was appointed Chief Justice of Queensland, having already served twice as the colony’s Premier … Read article

Posted by Jillian in Courts, General Information