Shouts from the desert

We should be finding out shortly what sentence Hicks has managed to secure under his plea bargain, but my bet is that it is "time served" or little more than this. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, if there is to be any pretence that the law being enforced is not retrospective then the punishment has to be based on the penalty available under the original laws covering the matter, where the maximum penalty was 10 years. Since Hicks has served more than half of that already he has already gone beyond any sentence he would be likely to have received under the older offence. Secondly, if Hicks is sentenced to longer than this he will serve out his term in Australia and will almost certainly lodge a petition for Habeas Corpus with the High Court. Howard does not want such a case dragging through the Courts during the election &emdash; he wants this whole matter over and done with as soon as possible in the hope that voters forget about it entirely before the election. Additionally the US does not want an Australian Court making a judgement as to whether the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals are capable of amounting to a Court, and any Habeas Corpus action would have to look at that in detail.

Politically, neither the US nor Howard is going to want Hicks being in a position to cause them more pain, and the participants in the military commission process are no doubt keen to dispel all notions that they are applying retrospective law. Both of these considerations will weigh in favour of a sentence that, taking into account Hicks' term of incarceration at Guantanamo, will see him released on or shortly after his return to Australia.