‘Politics have replaced justice’ (Major Michael Mori, July 2006): the long imprisonment of David Hicks

This paper draws together some key points and perspectives surrounding the imprisonment of David Hicks. It assumes most readers are familiar with the raft of arguments over time on this case, and aims to add to this knowledge by providing a chronology, with added argument drawing in particular on comment by leading legal persons in Australia, including George Williams of the University of New South Wales, and former Federal Attorney General Kep Enderby. It takes the position that, as David is an Australia citizen, the circumstances of his incarceration mean that his government has an ethical and political responsibility to bring him home without further delay. I argue that the case of David Hicks demonstrates that under the so-called ‘war on terror’, political expediency has rendered citizenship valueless and human rights unprotected. That is, confronted by politics, citizenship no longer promises justice. The substance of this paper was originally presented to last year's September 11 Civil Liberties Seminar in Bellingen, convened jointly by the Bellingen Institute and the Centre for Peace and Social Justice at Southern Cross University.