Ex Supreme Court Judge and NSW Attorney General linked to foreign bribery scandal

Clearly John Dowd should have known better!!!

Australia's second ever foreign bribery investigation is launched by the Federal Police into a Sydney-based construction company with links to some of Australia's most notorious terrorists. Australia's second ever foreign bribery investigation has been launched into a Sydney-based construction company with links to some of Australia's most notorious terrorists. After a series of raids in Sydney last week, federal police charged the directors of construction company Lifese - Mamdouh and Ibrahim Elomar - with foreign bribery offences.It is alleged the two attempted to bribe Iraqi government officials in order to secure multi-million-dollar contracts there.Mamdouh's son, Mohammed, is one of Australia's most wanted terrorists, infamous for posing with the severed heads of victims believed to have been killed by Islamic radicals in Syria.Mamdouh's other brother, Mohammed Ali Elomar, is in jail for one of Australia's largest terror plots.Within hours of the AFP's raids on the firm's offices last Thursday, the former opposition leader of the New South Wales Liberal Party, John Dowd, resigned as chairman of Lifese where he was a director for over six years. Earlier this week AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin confirmed it was only the second foreign bribery case to reach the courts."The AFP holds 14 active foreign bribery investigations at the moment," he said."Of those though, only 13 have foreign bribery as a primary offence and I will say that of those 14 only nine are publicly known at this stage."Two matters are at court and neither are resolved."No charges have been laid against Mr Dowd, and the ABC makes no suggestion of legal impropriety on his part.The former NSW attorney-general and retired Supreme Court judge confirmed to the ABC he had resigned from the Lifese board but was unable to comment further as the matter was before the courts.Foreign bribery case a 'wake-up call' to company directorsNeville Tiffen, director with Transparency International Australia and former head of global compliance for Rio Tinto, said it was the duty of directors to ensure their company was abiding by the law."Having another prosecution in Australia for foreign bribery really should be a wake-up call to all directors and executives, both listed and non-listed companies," he said."If I was a director of any company I'd be really checking my compliance programs, not just for the sake of the company but for the sake of the shareholders and even for my own sake."The chairman as, if you like, the senior director, it's obvious he's in a pivotal position to guide the company."He should be making sure the board is asking the right questions of management, really testing out management, really making sure they're digging deep and to find out any weak spots in the processes." The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been critical of Australia's handling of foreign bribery matters.The director of Melbourne University's centre for corporate law, Professor Ian Ramsay, said Australia had been "on notice for quite some years now"."To some degree the Government has responded," he said."For example, several years ago they substantially increased the penalties where it is proven that someone engages in bribery of a foreign public official, but there's more to the issue here than simply increasing the penalties or having strong law on the books."At the same time, we need very strong enforcement and I think it would be true to say that the Australian record over a number of years has been fairly patchy, particularly under those provisions of the Criminal Code Act that deal with bribery of foreign officials."Mamdouh and Ibrahim Elomar will appear in court on foreign bribery charges next month and face jail sentences of up to 10 years if found guilty. - See more at: http://www.australiaplus.com/international/2015-02-26/foreign-bribery-investigation-launched-into-sydneybased-construction-company-lifese-with-links-to-te/1418895#sthash.tD7zQQBn.dpuf

  S474.17 Criminal Code 1995/ Letter to Judge Jefferys Downing Center Sydney
Re Interpretation of Offensive by the Supreme Court

 

XXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

fionabrown01@hotmail.com

26^th February 2015

Judge Jefferys

District Court

Downing Centre  Sydney

 

Re Question of Law

Standard of  “offensiveness” to constitute a criminal charge

Supreme Court NSW

 

Dear Judge Jefferys

I refer to my Appeal in the District Court and the several times I have appeared before you  in applications for fresh evidence.

This  was an appeal from the Local Court. The Magistrate was Lisa Stapleton.

The complete failure and total disregard of Stapleton to apply   the correct standards  in S474.17 Criminal Code 1995  can only  show how fundamentally flawed the  NSW Judicial system is. Stapleton clearly showed no regard to any Higher Court Judgments  in regard to S474.17

 Taking everything into consideration it clearly appears inappropriate for you to refer to her as a learned magistrate when you are  aware  of her  failure and abuse of power in her decisions in regard   to this.

I therefore  need  a determination of question of law  in the Supreme Court because  I cannot have faith in your decisions  and believe there is a conflict of interest  making you vulnerable to protecting  her atrocious conduct instead of exposing it.

 

S 474.17 states S474.17

using a carriage service to menace harass or cause offence

A/ A person is guilty of  an offence if:

the person uses a carriage service and;

 the person does so in a way(  whether by the method or the use of contents  of communication or both that reasonable persons would regard as being in all the circumstances, menacing , harassing or offensive

. You will be aware from experience that  Menacing or Harassing to be criminal must cause extreme fear or anxiety  in a person to constitute a criminal charge . Therefore    “ Offensive”  must  have a collective interpretation  along with menace and harass.  The High Court’s decision in Monis V the Queen enforces this interpretation. Stapleton admitted to have read Monis 7 or eight times. Both you and Stapleton have read  “Brett David Starkey” which is the decision handed down by the District Court of Queensland  that  to convict it must be of a severity  that  it caused the relevant apprehension  or fear for safety. Stapleton failed in everyway to take any of this decision  into consideration .

You are also particularly aware that in Monis V the Queen the High Court  found that the narrow meaning of “offensive’ must be use. Therefore ,S473  Criminal Code must also have the narrow interpretation  to be considered criminal.

I have included this section for your convenience so you will not have to go to the trouble of looking this up.

S473

 Determining whether material is offensive

The matters to be taken into account  for this part whether  reasonable persons would regard  particular material or particular use of use he standards of  morality of the carriage service as being in all the circumstance offensive include:

a) the standards  of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults and,

b/ the literary, artistic or educational merit( if any)  of the general character of the material, and

c/ the general character of the  material( including whether it is of a medical legal or scientific in character

Judge Jefferys, If you took the narrow meaning of morality then it would need to be immoral to find it offensive. The narrow meaning of decency would be indecency or something close and the propriety should also have a narrow interpretation  and although I reminded Stapleton that she should read my blogs in correct context as required by S473 on several occasions  Stapleton saw no RELEVANCE in this.

Taking into careful consideration  the required  legislation  of S473 there  leaves little room for error of what “offensive’  is to be  considered under S474.17.

Therefore in the interest of Justice and  also in the interest of transparency the Supreme Court needs to give the correct standard for “ offensive” to be criminal.

You are aware the fault element is “ recklessness’  Recklessness must cause something. You are aware that this must cause anxiety  and fearfulness for ones safety. You are clearly aware this standard has in no way been met. and you are aware that Stapleton has failed in her duty as a magistrate.

The Supreme Court has requested a copy of the “Stated Case” or  certificate of Judgment  for proper  determination as soon as possible.

Unfortunately as I must reiterate again it has come to a matter where I have no confidence in you.

I am sure you understand my point  taking everything into consideration  of your appeared support of Lisa Stappleton as a learned Magistrate

A  quick response would be appreciated.

Thanking you

Fiona Brown