Justice Deferred Or Double Standards – Choose Society’s Poison Carefully

In the long and grim annals of Australia’s legal history, few cases are as emblematic of miscarriage, prejudice, and institutional failure as that of the Croatian Six.

In 1981, six Croatian-Australians—recent migrants, many with little or limited English, all white, Catholic, and imbued with Croatian patriotic fervour—were convicted in one of the era’s longest trials for a conspiracy to bomb targets in Sydney: Yugoslav travel agencies, a theatre, and even a major water supply line. Each was sentenced to 15 years, and each served a decade before release.

Only in recent years, after many failed appeals and a recent judicial enquiry that is yet to be finalised, have serious doubts emerged.

Evidence withheld at trial, the key witness who later admitted on television to fabricating his account, and suggestions of police corruption and intelligence agency incompetence—all of which cast a long shadow over whether these men ever received a fair trial.

If anything good can come of the Croatian Six saga, it is as a cautionary tale: justice delayed is worse than justice compromised, but delayed justice still matters. It raises an uncomfortable question: how many are today swept aside with far fewer safeguards, in an age when legitimate fears of global Islamist radicalism dominate the headlines, politics, and judicial lawmaking?

Recent Cases, Softer Impacts

Contrast the Croatian Six ordeal with several recent cases involving Islamist radicalisation, anti-terrorism arrests, and advocacy for violent Islamist causes.

Take, for example, Aran Sherani, a young man who pledged allegiance to ISIS, engaged with extremist propaganda, and started fires while singing violent threats in videos. He received a sentence of eight years, with the possibility of parole in six—in part because of mitigating factors like youth, upbringing, and vulnerability.

Or the case of a Queensland man who produced videos urging support for Islamic State, calling for weapons, and exhorting others to jihad. He was sentenced to four years with a three-year non-parole period. While the charges were serious, many felt the punishment did not match the moral gravity of incitement to violence.

Even Abdul Nacer Benbrika, a convicted leader of an extremist group, was, following release, allowed to operate under supervision after serving his full sentence.

There are reports of his involvement in funding the legal fight of a preacher who continues to express sympathies for violent jihad, even as courts recognise the fragility of his “deradicalisation”.

Hypocrisy & The Skewed Lens of History

What appears striking is the discrepancy in how the state, the courts, the media, and the broader society treat different accused extremists: their religion, ethnicity, and background seem to matter enormously in shaping these responses.

In the Croatian Six case, the reaction of the state – in this case, the state of New South Wales – was swift, harsh, and unmoved by pleas of innocence or demands for due process.

The accused were migrants with unpronounceable names and unpopular political views (Croatian nationalism) at a time when communism loomed large, global espionage was real, and fears were easily transferred onto vulnerable minorities.

Yet many of the evidentiary threads used against them were weak, circumstantial, later discredited, or never disclosed to the defence at all.

By contrast, many cases in recent years involving Islamist radicalism show a willingness—perhaps even eagerness—on the part of courts and political institutions to emphasise rehabilitation, to consider mitigating personal circumstances, or to allow for conditional release relatively soon, even when ideologically extreme content or incitement features prominently.

It is not always leniency, but it sometimes appears that the fear of being accused via that weasel word, ‘Islamophobia’, or of over-punishing a religious minority, creates an asymmetry: justice pursued zealously when the accused were non-Muslim migrants in earlier decades; justice tamed when the accused are Muslim citizens today, even in cases of clear and present danger and evidence of deadly radical intent.

Why The Discrepancy Matters

There are at least three compelling consequences of this discrepancy.

First, the erosion of trust. For many migrant communities, seeing individuals treated harshly when public sentiment turns against them—seen as “others”—creates a sense of perpetual insecurity: that loyalty, even innocence, won’t protect you.

For mainstream Australia, the Croatian Six case arguably turned all 200,000 Croatian Australians into a suspect class – a stigma that still exists within some sections of Australia’s media.

Second, precedent. How we treat these cases becomes the benchmark. If recent Islamist radicalism cases are treated with tempering—if context always counts, if ideology sometimes gets softened—then the “seriousness” standard fluctuates depending on who is accused. That threatens equality under law.

Third, moral hazard. If the state seems reactive rather than firm in the face of extremist ideology, then extremist discourse may thrive in the grey zones where incitement is discouragingly treated as speech, threats are softened into ideology, and ideologues can find loopholes.

Conversely, heavy-handed treatment breeds its own backlash, but selective heavy-handedness fosters perceptions of unfairness, or that other equally as ubiquitous term, racism.

Conclusion

At the time of publication, the surviving five of the original Croatian Six still await a final appeal judgement from the NSW government; the case remains a visible scar on the conscience of Australia’s justice system: men convicted and ultimately imprisoned for long years, their lives and that of their families shattered, who only now may be vindicated by an enquiry that is yet to yield its final verdict.

Yet looking at recent prosecutions of Islamist radicals—with their mitigating factors, their shorter sentences, their somewhat gentler public tone—one cannot help but see a mirror image: similar fears, similar political pressures, but with outcomes that diverge wildly.

A true test of any mature, stable and ultimately viable democracy is not only whether it confronts terror but also whether it does so impartially.

If we dispense justice unequally, if we allow identity to mitigate what would otherwise be treated as an offence, then we risk betraying not the letter of our laws, but their spirit.

And with that, we are one step closer to becoming what we fight against.