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34 Current Issues Crim. Just. 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/cicj34 and id is 1 raw text is: CURRENT ISSUES IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE 2022, VOL. 34, NO. 1, 1-19 https://doi.org/10.1080/10345329.2021.1983103 ed terrorismn iK Routledge Taylor & Francis Group n The University of Sydney Law School, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia 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. KEYWORDS Terrorism (High-Risk Offenders) Act 2017; violent extremism; preventive detention; implied freedom of political communication; social media. The Terrorism (High-Risk Offenders) Act 2017 (NSW) (THRO Act) establishes a regime of post-sentence detention and supervision (ss. 22; 34) for offenders who are found to pose an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offence if not subjected to ongoing supervision or detention on expiry of their sentences (ss. 21; 35). The THRO Act, in implementing such extraordinary measures, follows an increasingly common path of incorporating prospective risk management tools into the criminal law (State of New South Wales v Baldwin [2019], [92]; Ashworth and Zedner (2012), p. 543; Ash- worth & Zedner, 2014, pp. 2-4; Tulich, 2012, p. 59), as terrorism radically alters conven- tional approaches to crime prevention and criminalisation of past conduct (Ananian- Welsh & Williams, 2014; Ashworth & Zedner, 2012, p. 543; Ashworth & Zedner, 2014, pp. 171-195; McGarrity & Williams, 2010). Such regimes, which occupy liminal space between the criminal and civil law, necessarily abrogate a range of fundamental principles of the criminal law, common law and human rights in the name of protecting CONTACT Josh Pallas ® Jpal9612@uni.sydney.edu.au; 0 @joshpallas © 2021 Sydney Institute of Criminology Heed the and the Josh Pallas