SHARP END OF THE LAW

This Supreme Court judge is sick of dealing daily
with the misery of drugs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the compassion and willingness of
Supreme Court Justice Frank Vincent to see life from the viewpoint of
the accused is related to the wicked curve of an old baling hook.

It rests, propped on its handle and point, on a mantelpiece in the
judge's chambers, below shelves stacked with heavy legal tomes.

It belonged to Frank Vincent's father, a wharfie who slung his hook on
the wharves of Port Melbourne and Launceston. The family moved to
Tasmania when Justice Vincent's grandfather became ill and needed care.

Justice Vincent was a poor boy, whose mother won a tenner at the trots
and used it to enrol her son at the Mt Carmel Christian Brothers
college in Middle Park.

The young Vincent then went to St Patrick's in Launceston, and won a
scholarship to study law at Melbourne University.

His background gives him an understanding. That wicked old hook.
Words he uses, like evil, also have a spiritual meaning.

JUSTICE Vincent had had to sit in judgment on horrendous cases that
would test anyone's faith in their fellow man.

He described the Bega murderers, Leslie Camilleri and Lindsay Beckett,
as evil.

He spoke to Camilleri of "the demon within you being let
loose".

They seemed more than words that a murderer might understand. They
might have been words meant to speak to all of us.

It is chilly in the confines of the Supreme Court building in
Melbourne, in spite of a new heating system. Perhaps the chill of the
cold-blooded crimes that have been exposed within its walls still lingers.

Justice Vincent describes criminal behavior as "a distorted image of
our society".

"But it is an image of our society," he insists in the same tone he
used when, clothed in wig and gown, he told Camilleri that the killer
had forfeited the right to walk among the rest of us.

Specifically, he is talking about the evil threatening Generation X.
Drugs.

The judge told the good but somewhat startled citizens at a recent
Rotary club lunch that he thought zero tolerance to drugs was
"primitive".

He said that there were long-term drug users to whom he would
"personally provide heroin if it were legal".

The judge sees drug abuse as a complex problem, beyond a simplistic
approach. He would personally give heroin to someone if it would save
his life. his life. He points out that these are personal thoughts and
that, as a judge, he is bound to uphold the law.

But, like his father's baling hook, the law has sharp points that must
be observed -- like accused persons' motives, their ciremnatances,
their age, their maturity.

The judge is not soft. The judge is understanding. He must weigh the
circumstances when applying the law.

NOT all his observations are made from the potentially distorted
viewpoint of the bench. He talks of drug takers and dealers not 93being
alien94.

Nor, in broad terms, he says, are their values different from those of
society. But this does not mean 93people do not make choices94.

93Nor does it mean,94 he says, and there is at least a mental steepling
of fingers, 93that all criminal behavior is to be accepted on the basis
that society is responsible for it94.

93Nor does it suggest that you necessarily adopt the soft attitude
towards any piece of criminal behavior or any particular person.94

Justice Vincent has spent his life in a world of other people's
criminality, but the underlying thread is that this experience has
never stopped him from at least trying to understand a drug problem
with seemingly no solutions.

HE is chairman of the Victorian Parole Board. 93I am not at all happy
with the level of drug usage in the jail system,94 he says.

Locking people up, he asserts, is 93a fairly desperate response at the
best of times94.

He says he is not 93particularly impressed with the efficiency with
which private prisons operate94. There needs to be better training and
more staff to properly monitor what is happening in the state's
privatised prisons.

93The practical reality is that you cannot.94

But while Justice Vincent recognises the complexity of the drug issue,
he sees two very clear paths: 93If we imposed the death penalty for
unlawful parking, we could be fairly confident that most people would
not indulge in that behavior.

93The tragedy about it (drugs) is that there would still be some fools
who would.94

The fools are often young people who are 93frequently self destructive
- -- like all young people they think they are immortal94. Of course, they
are not.

93It is a complex social phenomenon and there are a variety of answers
and partial answers and I am reluctant to exclude any of them,94 he
says.

At 61. Justice Vincent has spent a life sitting not merely in judgment
of others, but in helping those struggling with the system to find
justice.

Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court bench in 1985, he spent
11 years establishing the Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. As a
barrister, he often waived his fee for those unable to pay.

Now, he is confronted with a social dilemma that is taking as heavy a
burden on Generation X as the road toll.

93Because it is such an inherently socially and personally destructive
activity, I am extremely reluctant to go down the path of
decriminalisation,94 he says.

93It would be naive to anticipate there would not be a greater level of
experimentation.

93When people consider harm minimisation, such as the provision of
heroin to addicted persons, that is a very significant moral dilemma.94

It may be 93a choice which can be justified in a given situation, but
not as a broad proposition".

In a society that expects a single-answer solution, Justice Vincent
says he does not have it.

But he is adamant that those who break the law by choice, to profit
from drugs, will be dealt with.

His judgment will be as stern as it can be understanding.