Australian Senate passes anti-terror laws News
Australian Senate passes anti-terror laws

[JURIST] The Australian Senate [official website] on Tuesday voted to approve new counter-terrorism laws that broaden the offense of sedition and allow for the detention of suspected terrorists for up to seven days. The legislation passed the lower house [JURIST report] last week after vigorous debate. The government blocked opposition attempts to amend the bill [JURIST report], allowing less than four hours to discuss over 100 proposed amendments to the bill and prompting opposition to call the move bad for democracy [AAP report]. The government did back down a bit over sedition provisions, including providing for extra protection for news reports or commentaries [Telegraph report] and Attorney General Philip Ruddock said that the sedition law will be reviewed next year. The sedition portion of the bill has come under fire in recent weeks, with opposition likening the laws to practices used in North Korea, Cuba and Syria [JURIST report], and Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser [official profile] contended [JURIST report] that the laws were reversing "centuries of advances" in human rights and protection of individual liberties. Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.