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Journalism of Courage
The lawyer,who bravely defended Indian-origin doctor Mohamed Haneef after his arrest in the failed UK terror plot by Australian police,has been awarded the Human Rights Medal for 2009.
The Human Rights Commission has honoured Queensland barrister Stephen Keim SC for furthering the human rights of prisoners,refugees and people with disabilities,ABC reported on Friday.
The charges on Haneef were later dropped and led to his clearance of terrorism-related offences.
Keim felt he had no choice but to take the extraordinary step of leaking a police record of interview to the media to defend the reputation of his client.
“I had no doubts about it at the time. It seemed to be the right (thing) to do,” Keim said.
“I was the person in the situation. I had to make the call. I went ahead with it.
“Dr Haneef’s visa had been cancelled on character reasons and (former minister Kevin) Andrews had gone on about 50 million television and radio stations talking about the bad character of someone who was supposed to be facing a fair trial… It was really significant to balance the record.”
Keim said there was a knife-edge aspect to his decision,however it merely highlighted the important role of lawyers.
“I think our role in making sure every person who has a cause has a chance to have that cause argued in the courts is really,really important,” he added.
