Published: 12 November 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
[embed]https://thejewishindependent.com.au/video-and-podcast/lap-caulfield-park-ashley-browne/[/embed]
WANT TO FIND A FRIDAY NIGHT dinner subject as divisive as Donald Trump, Israel and a night AFL Grand Final?
How about the death penalty?
Melbourne human rights lawyer Sara Kowal has become one Australia’s leading anti capital punishment advocates and has told Ashley Browne, in the latest episode of The Jewish Independent’s Lap of Caulfield Park podcast that Australia has a role to play in this matter, even though the last Australian to be hanged in this country was Ronald Ryan in 1967.
“Australia is just one country but it is part of the global community and we have a responsibility, I would say, to pay attention to what is happening all over the world,” she said.
“And being an abolitionist country is fantastic but it’s not enough to just change your own policy and say that you’re done, you need to look at what’s going on and for me, the death penalty is the natural extension of the work I’ve been doing in criminal law for almost 20 years and is at the pointy end of the justice system.
“It’s something that has just always interested me, even from before I studied law, it’s where human rights abuses are happening at the extreme and I think we should focus on that.”
Like many Australians, it was the execution of drug couriers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers in Malaysia in 1986 that raised her interest in capital punishment. She became a criminal lawyer and in 2007 joined the legal team representing the Bali Nine, including Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, who were later executed, although as she told the podcast, her work there was “rudely interrupted when I went off and had lots of children.
“But I remember feeling quite amazed that a government could go and take away an individual’s life. It wouldn’t take much to connect that to being the grand-daughter of Holocaust survivors, and states making a decision on who will live and who will die has deep roots for me,” she said.
Also on the podcast, Sara discusses
- What to say to someone when they ask questions about capital punishment.
- Her work as a founding member of Eleos Justice at Monash University and also the Capital Punishment Justice Project.
- Her vague ties to Melbourne’s gangland wars and in particular the late Lewis Moran as well as a former associate, the controversial Nicola Gobbo
- Work-life balance tips (she is married with four young children while working full-time).
- How her older three children plan to deal with their youngest sister being featured in the title of the latest book from her mother, well-known writer and broadcaster Ramona Kowal, A Letter to Layla.
Listen here or find the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast or your favourite podcast provider.
