Heed the call: the implied freedom of political communication and the terrorism high-risk offenders regime

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2020, the Terrorism (High-Risk Offenders) Act 2017 (NSW) (THRO Act) has increasingly become a frontier for contestation about the implied freedom of political communication and the maintenance of community safety. In closely considering two recent decisions, State of New South Wales v Cheema (Preliminary) [2020] NSWSC 876 and Cheema v State of New South Wales [2020] NSWCA 190, this article analyses the courts’ use of a deeming provision to prove that an offender has advocated support for a terrorist act or violent extremism. I argue that these decisions have significant implications for the rights of offenders convicted of indictable offences and journalists who seek to engage in political communication. I further argue contrary to the reasoning in the decisions, that the THRO Act has the real capacity to burden the implied freedom of political communication in extending the State’s powers to subject individuals to supervision and detention after expiry of their sentences in a way that is disproportionate to the end of maintaining community safety. In doing so, I seek to draw attention to the THRO Act’s extraordinary ambit in a call for wider scholarly attention as provisions such as that under examination are increasingly frequently invoked.