James Glissan

And it's not new.

Obviously, child sex offenses is a big one.

Yeah, yeah.

So there are clear instances where it's in the public interest, because I think the public as a whole can get around prosecuting people who are accused of child sex offenses.

But when you're looking at some of these other offenses and this power gets included, you know, hate speech or with the Ben Roberts Smith case in particular, that starts to become a little bit more muddy.

Yeah.

because people aren't really sure.

The public isn't even really sure as to whether or not this is in the public interest.

Well, one of the big issues, of course, and it's very difficult to speak about this without speaking to the evidence, which, for example, I'm not allowed to do.

I can't comment on anything that might, and we'll understand the irony in a little bit here, but I can't comment about anything that might prejudice his case.

Right.

But when you're looking at war crimes, and they've happened, you know, we've got the time aspect over 20 years, we've got the distance aspect, how far away it was, difficulties in attending the scene of the alleged crime, difficulties in obtaining witness statements and evidence, it starts to really become a weighing up of, yes, justice needs to be seen to be done.

So it needs to be something that is perhaps tried, irrespective of the outcome.

But

If it falls over terribly, and I'm not saying that it will, but if it falls over terribly because there simply isn't enough rock-hard evidence to support the allegations, that's not in the public interest because that's not really going to put a lot of faith in the system at all.

And then people who are skeptical that this was a political move...

will be, you know, I guess in some ways validated by it.

And they say, well, look, they didn't even have enough evidence in the first place.

It's very interesting because that's risky.

Very risky.