A Plea for Justice

New South Wales is seriously out of step with other Australian jurisdictions and the international community when it comes to sentencing laws.

As NSW law currently stands without the right for review, a prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment has no incentive to rehabilitate, no entitlement to earn remission and, most cruelly, has no goal to aim for, nor any hope of release.
 
Review does not mean simply “letting prisoners out”; it involves a mechanism to take another look at each individual so there is some glimmer of hope. There are clearly some cases where lifers, even if reviewed, will never be candidates for release as the need to protect society is the overriding concern. There are, however, some other lifers who might justify review and eventually release.

One such prisoner is Phuong Canh Ngo who has served 25 years in detention. He has been sentenced to die in gaol. He is 65. If he lives to the age of 80, he will have spent the equivalent of two life sentences in jail.

The petitioners ask the NSW Legislative Assembly:

1)   to return to the NSW Supreme Court the power to review the sentences of lifers who have served 25 years or more in detention.

2)   to review Phuong Canh Ngo’s life sentence without parole. Justice John Dunford remarked on sentencing Ngo that he would have set a parole date, but that he was prevented by mandatory sentencing.

3)   to reconsider the length of Ngo’s life sentence in view of the 25 years already served or to allow the prisoner to serve out the rest of his sentence in home detention.  

Contact NSW Attorney General Michael Daley MP

Why Phuong Ngo should not be in prison

The fatal shooting of Cabramatta MP John Newman on the night of Monday 5 September 1994 in the driveway of his home, shocked the nation. Newman was given a state funeral and the murder was dubbed Australia’s first political assassination. Vietnamese born former Fairfield Councillor Phuong Canh Ngo was sentenced to jail for life for the murder, but his two alleged accomplices Quang Dao and David Dinh were acquitted. Ngo was arrested in 1998 and his papers have been marked never to be released. He continues to maintain he is innocent.

Ngo is a model prisoner. He has served almost 25 years behind bars in some of our toughest prisons. He is 64. If he lives to the age of 80 or 90, he will have served the equivalent of two life sentences. As the law stands at present, he has no right to a review of his sentence and will die in jail.

This lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key mentality harks back to the convict era when public floggings and hangings were commonplace. Today we believe we are better than that and routinely lecture dictatorships such as Myanmar and China for human rights abuses against minorities. As Australians we claim the moral high ground on human rights, yet when it comes to sentencing laws, we ignore international human rights agreements to which we are a signatory. 

Carlotta McIntosh - Author (copyright 2022). www.freephuongngo.com

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION TO REVIEW LONG TERM MANDATORY SENTENCING.