Tyranny in Australia

"John Howard′s anti-terrorism bill frog-marches Australia down the road to tyranny," said a column published recently in the Sydney Morning Herald. The headline was even more forthright: "Big Brother rules the great brown land." It seems the tyrant is already here, and merely forgot to shut down the opposition papers.

Despite writer Mike Carlton′s hysterical and ridiculous exaggeration, the article deals with a serious topic. The anti-terror bill proposed by the Australian government to parliament includes orders that deviate from the usual norms of civil rights that have become conventional in the free world. The most problematic of these instructions says that it is possible to impose "supervision orders" on people suspected of being in contact with a terrorist group, limiting those individuals′ freedom of movement up to house arrest.

That arrest would be subject to judicial oversight similar to the judicial oversight that exists in Israel concerning administrative detention. A similar law has already been legislated, after much debate, in Britain. Now the government of Australia - which lost dozens of its citizens who were murdered in the mass terrorist attack in Bali, Indonesia -wants to adopt the model. The recent arrest of suspects in the planning of a major terror attack proves, says the Australian government, the urgent need for such legislation.

It′s not only Australia, afraid of a direct attack, or Britain, which has been attacked, but a long list of other Western democracies where there has been a growing tendency toward more strict anti-terror legislation. In the world after September 11, the West is looking for some new balance between human rights and security needs. When the state widens its security authority, there is always a danger it will go further than what is required and justified.

Depriving or limiting personal freedoms without a trial - even when the process is subject to judicial oversight - is a heavy price to pay in terms of democratic values. It is deeply against the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Even if such legislation is necessary because of the danger of mass killings, it′s preferable not to make the life of a government trying to pass such legislation too easy. It′s important to examine every such law very closely: Is it really necessary, is there a less intrusive way to reach the same security goal, is it impossible to create a more effective monitoring mechanism to avoid wrongful exploitation of security authority?

Democracy also - and especially - created parliamentary and public instruments meant to criticize government. So what′s wrong with civil rights activists and liberal journalists using sometimes loud and extreme language as part of that effort? Aren′t they ultimately contributing to a more balanced outcome, to better legislation?

To a certain degree, indeed they are: Western democracy has proved more than once that it is also possible to build on "non-constructive" criticism. However - and this also has a reasonable limit - when you say to the typical Australian that his government is leading the country to tyranny, presumably they shrug it off and let the words pass over his left ear, without taking it seriously - even if some of what is said is worth listening to. Shouting too loudly boomerangs, especially when the typical Australian notices that the critic, as in the above mentioned case, totally ignores terror and its dangers, and the impression is that all human rights are dear to his heart, except for the right to live, when it comes to the victims of terror.