Just Cases

1968 seems a lifetime ago. It was a defining year of the 20th century. 1968 is also the year that a Japanese professional boxer was sentenced to death for murder. Remarkably, he remains on death row to this day. The case of Iwao Hakamada has exposed questionable police practices, a forced confession and a bombshell claim from one of the judges who sentenced him.

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A newly-elected Australian government is concerned about a growing Communist influence in Australia. The scene is set for a major High Court case. 

Court case: 

Australian Communist Party v Commonwealth ("Communist Party case") [1951] HCA 5; (1951) 83 CLR 1 (9 March 1951)

Read judgment: 

http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/HCA/1951/5.html

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How does Australian law protect the beliefs and religious practices of witches, conjurers and fortune-tellers? A High Court case from the 1930s could provide the answers. 

There’s a big debate about religious freedom in Australia after the federal government announced plans to introduce new federal religious discrimination laws. Most of the coverage of the religious freedom debate focuses on protecting the major religions, ...

“There’s a saying in law that hard cases make bad law,” says Dr Colin Campbell. “Judges will sometimes do what they think is right in a particular case, but in doing that they will muck up the law." 

Numerous inquiries have uncovered widespread discrimination and exclusion against children at government schools around Australia. While state-run education departments are tasked with the responsibility of fixing this problem,...

Earlier this year the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced it had shut down a long-running investigation into corruption at Rolls-Royce. What did the UK authorities have to trade in exchange for Rolls-Royce’s money and cooperation? 

Between 1999 to 2013, the SFO and a joint BBC/The Guardian investigation revealed that Rolls-Royce - which manufactures aircraft engines and defence systems, as well as their famed luxury c...

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How does the law balance the rights of women to access safe and legal abortions with the right to free speech and protest? 

For over twenty years anti-abortion protesters have picketed abortion clinics around Australia. To combat this targeted harassment of women seeking safe and legal abortions, state governments have passed ‘safe access zone’ laws which create an exclusion zone around abortion clinics which protestors can...

A fight over a new toilet block at a Catholic school in 1962 turns into a major constitutional and ideological war, the effects of which last until today. 

Australians traditionally sees themselves as pretty secular compared to the rest of the world. But how Australians choose to fund their children’s education paints a very different picture. 

For every dollar the Federal Government spends per student in a private ...

Issues affecting transgender people are much more prominent in the public consciousness than they’ve ever been. This episode of JUST CASES explores one important legal issue: can children access hormone therapy or surgery in Australia? 

We speak to the judge who decided this important case and learn what it’s like to make such life-changing decisions. 

WARNING: This episode contains some difficult subject matter. Th...

The corruption case against former South African president Jacob Zuma has begun. Zuma’s case lifts the lid on the influence of weapons companies on governments worldwide. 

“It’s not a story of a corrupt guy, Jacob Zuma,” says Hennie van Vuuren, the director of Open Secrets, a South African organisation that investigates economic crimes and abuses of power. 

“[Instead] it’s a story of a network of players around the ...

It's just before midnight on 10 July 1985. The Port of Auckland, New Zealand. The Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace anti-nuclear protest ship, is sitting at its dock when two massive explosions tear through its hull. 

A man is killed onboard. 

What follows is one of the most bizarre and sinister of diplomatic incidents. 

The hunt for his killers uncovers an international network of spies, and exposes a highly-co...

A series of factory fires in Sydney in 1916 leads to a full-blown treason trial. 

The case of the ‘IWW Twelve’ sees a dozen local members of a radical worldwide movement caught in a perfect political storm.

Storyteller: Dr Stephen Gray, Monash Law School

Hosts: Dr Melissa Castan & James Pattison

Further reading:

- ‘Death Cults, Murdering a Police Officer, and the First World War' by Dr Stephen Gray (Alternative ...

It’s the night of 2 August 1926. Five nautical miles off the coast of Lesbos. A French ship, the SS Lotus, is cruising towards its destination of Constantinople. The ship’s first officer is keeping watch, but he doesn’t know that there’s a Turkish ship dead ahead. 

What lies ahead is not only a naval disaster, but a diplomatic dispute that throws a massive colonial power on a collision course with a young nation on the rise...

In 1886 a sensational banking scandal hit the headlines in Great Britain. It involved the world's richest man, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, and it led to an absurd decision. 

More than a century later, the current Banking Royal Commission in Australia continues to expose stories of banks behaving badly. 

But it remains rare for the people at the helm of banks and other major corporations -...

If you engage in consensual sadomasochistic sex could you actually be found guilty of assault? The case of R v Brown is one of the most hotly debated decisions in legal history. 

WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of acts of a sexual nature, a violent nature, and a mention of suicide. Listener discretion is advised.

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Can you be charged with assault for punching an opponent on the sports field? A violent on-field incident in the Australian Football League (AFL) has led to calls for police to bring criminal charges against one of the league's best players. 

West Coast player Andrew Gaff has been suspended for eight matches for punching 18-year-old Fremantle player Andrew Brayshaw behind play. 

Brayshaw has undergone surgery on a b...