The High Court, and activist judges outrageously asserting that in a democracy people have the right to vote ...

(Above: activist High Court Judge Chief Justice French. Funny ensuring someone has the right to vote is being activist, but there you go. Damned activist judges. You can find details of all the High Court activist judges here, long may they sit!)

No doubt some time in the near future Janet Albrechtsen will deliver a rant about activist judges.

Well three cheers for activist judges, and three cheers in particular for paracletes and the High Court which delivered this rather breathless shorthand:

The orders of the Court are:

1. Declare that items 20, 24, 28, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 52 of Schedule 1 to the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Electoral Integrity and Other Measures) Act 2006 (Cth) are invalid.
2. The second defendant to pay the plaintiffs’ costs of the further amended application for an order to show cause.

I publish those orders. The Court’s reasons will be delivered at a later date. The Court will now adjourn to Tuesday, 24 August 2010 at 10.15 am in Canberra. (here and you can pick up the other transcripts of proceedings at the bottom of the page here).

It was one of the more deeply offensive acts of the Howard Government that it fiddled with enrolment procedures and the right to vote for purely petty piddling political motives, and at last it's got the comeuppance it deserved. It's also deeply offensive that Steve Fielding prevented the Rudd government from doing anything about it, and that the Labor government wrung its hands, but did little to pursue the matter.

Well Fielding will shortly be gone, and three cheers for that too. And as Bob Brown points out, the country now has the technical means to enrol people right up to election day.

As usual, people - especially conservatives - blather about the splendours of parliamentary democracy, and then in the most cynical way stay silent when a government contrive ways to keep the punters, or at least punters they suspect don't like them, from voting.

Usually this is also wrapped up in deep contempt for the people they purport to treasure, as in Andrew the Dolt's lead for his piece Vacuum hits real policies:

This is the election for morons. For the easily fooled. For people so clueless they wouldn't vote if it wasn't the law.

Put it another way.

This is the column and columnist for morons. For the easily fooled. For people so clueless they wouldn't read a newspaper unless they found the Herald Sun left sitting in a train ...

You see, beneath the conservative chipboard veneer is a genuine chipboard contempt for actual voters, for morons, people easily fooled and clueless. As opposed to the astute contemplations and unerring insights of charlatan tabloid dolts ...

Well good on GetUp! for getting the appeal together, and all the mad as hell activist pro bono hardworking lawyers who persuaded the activist judges to do over the politicians.

Here at the pond we regularly slag off lawyers, so let's acknowledge that's the result of too much reading of childish commentariat commentators like Janet Albrechtsen, who hate their own kind with a passion sometimes greater than that reserved for lefties and watermelons.

The original Howard Government move was breathtakingly cynical in its desire to punish young voters, and alienate them from the system, because of their suspect tendency to vote according to their hearts' desires, which is to say, not Liberal, and it's profoundly irritating to read that the Liberals are still trying to defend their shenanigans:

The opposition’s accountability spokesman Michael Ronaldson defended the 2006 changes as moves to strengthen the integrity of the electoral roll.

It was now open to rort and abuse, he said. (here)

Actually the rorting and abuse of the electoral system was done by the Howard Government, as the High Court has now confirmed.

Why does Ronaldson keep tarnishing his image by trying to defend the indefensible? He even managed to turn up on PM blathering the same sort of blather (here), muttering darkly about all sorts of paranoid conspiracy theories, and integrity, and how hard it all was:

MICHAEL RONALDSON: This is not about overturning the High Court decision. We very much respect that and I said we welcome the additional voters who will come on. But it doesn't detract from the issues that we have in relation to the ability of the AEC to properly check people's bona fides prior to them having the right to vote.

And anything that undermines the integrity and the ability of the AEC to make those decisions and to do those investigations, in our view, undermines the integrity of the roll and if the integrity of the electoral roll is undermined then people lose confidence in the fact that their vote actually means something.

Gherkin.

That's right, keep reminding me of the fault of the Howard government, as you seek my vote.

The Electoral Commission now has the job of adding another 100,000 voters to the rolls, which they can do in a way that avoids rort and abuse, and which happens to be their job. As noted in the PM report, those not on the rolls can turn up with an accepted form of proof, such as a driver's licence, and make a declaration vote. How hard is that?

You know, since we live in a glorious democracy, the aim is to get voters, and people who haven't voted before, to end up on the rolls and vote.

The dear long absent lord knows there's bugger all benefit in being in a democracy, but the right to express an opinion every three or so years, is not just a right but a duty ... even if in exercising that duty some might choose to act like donkeys.

Here's how Chris Mereritt saw it in Decision leaves room for future challenges:

... we will need to wait until the court hands down its reasons -- which could take months. But it is already clear that the court believes the nature of representative democracy is of such importance that politicians cannot be allowed to wind it back -- by restricting the right to vote -- without good reason.

And even then, the court will still strike down those restrictions if it considers they are disproportionate.

And he makes an even more optimistic point:

If the reasons underpinning the decision are broad enough, they could provide an even stronger basis for challenging future restrictions on the right to vote.

Some might question why this challenge to a 2006 law was brought in the middle of an election campaign in 2010.

But until it was possible to show that the law had caused a real problem, the challenge could never have been heard.

Back in March 2010, Antony Green, local Enmore celebrity, was wondering when the Electoral Commission might get off its backside and catch up with technology (here in The Debate on Close of Rolls Returns).

And even further back in the day, in the dark days of 2006, the Howard government move was debated and defended by the likes of Senator Brett Mason with the same kind of nonsense that's being trotted out now:

JOHN FAULKNER: These people aren't crooks. They're not rorters. They're not trying to manipulate the electoral system. They're ordinary Australians, perhaps less obsessed about politics than the people who sit in this chamber, but ordinary Australians who want to vote.

LOUISE YAXLEY: The Liberals' Brett Mason says it will improve the integrity of the roll.

BRETT MASON: A change the Government hopes that will limit the scope for electoral fraud. Measures such as this, which are designed to strengthen and protect the integrity of the roll, are essential for upholding Australia's democratic system.(here)

Gherkin. Thanks Queensland.

Actually it needed a change of government to limit the government's scope for electoral fraud. That and the activist judges on the High Court.

Well even if their costs were covered, you can send a donation the way of GetUp! if you like what they did, though they're painfully honest in their transparency. (And speaking of donations, WikiLeaks offers PayPal as a way to donate, so naturally I did ...)

In the meantime, ain't it grand that the all too clever conniving of the hard men of the Howard government finally get their comeuppance.

How did Voltaire put it?

I disapprove of the way you vote, but I will defend to the death your right to vote that way, even if it's a donkey vote or a vote for dolts ...

Activist judges 1, Albrechtsen nil ...

(And now a couple of activist judges' cartoons, the first an oldie about whistle blowing and wiki leaks and the quaint notion that the law and the truth should fallen silent in times of war inter arma enim silent leges)