Jane Morton XR on trial

 

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"For blocking the Princes Bridge in late 2019 with XR I'm trying the 'Extraordinary Emergency' defence."  So said Jane Morton when she asked me to blog about her trial on Monday. I was more than happy to do so. Court turned out to be a somewhat weird experience. 

As we are in Lockdown, Jane was not required to attend court in person, but rather was tried online via Webex. And only the main protagonists - the magistrate, the prosecutor, a detective senior constable, the 2 defence witnesses and Jane herself were ever visible. The rest of us, a large grid of observers in our own tiny boxes with names underneath, remained invisible and silent throughout the whole long day. We were not permitted to record the proceedings or of course to take photos. Luckily, (for this post) I had previously taken photos of Jane at a variety of XR events. And although I was not present at the action on September 13, 2019 at which she was arrested, Jane herself was able to supply me with photos from that day:

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And here is some of what Liam Mannix and Ashleigh McMilan, reporting for The Age, had to say about the event: 

"It was a protest in the best traditions of Melbourne, Australia's city of protests: loud, colourful, chaotic and, often, bizarre. The Extinction Rebellion protest drew hundreds to the banks of the Yarra, there to call for the government to declare a climate crisis and take action to halt it. Dozens were arrested, but not before they shut down Princes Bridge for three hours from midday, causing transport chaos.

'We have totally run out of time', said Jane Morton, one of the protest's leaders. 'Scientists are saying we're reaching the tipping point for an irreversible hothouse earth. To get the government to declare a climate emergency, the most powerful tactic is to go to a large city and shut it down for as long as possible. We are risking human extinction'."

At Court 26 Jane faced two charges: obstructing a road and obstructing a footpath. She was not contesting any of the facts described by the police, but rather arguing that the extraordinary emergency which humanity now faces means that non-violent civil disobedience has become a necessity. 

Jane had chosen to defend herself. But to strengthen her case she aimed to present an affidavit from Emeritus Professor and Climate Change Expert Will Steffen. She had also invited two witnesses. 

In his statement Professor Steffen argued that mass civil disobedience is reasonable at this point in history. Unfortunately the magistrate ruled that the affidavit was inadmissable, that Professor Steffen needed to have come to court to present his argument. As to the two witnesses, Psychologist Carol Ride and Research Director David Spratt, both of whom have huge amounts of lived experience and are eminent and long-standing climate change activists, their credentials were challenged and their input denigrated as insufficiently expert. 

Jane's own credentials, you would think, are indisputable. She is Convenor of Darebin Climate Action Now, and was integral to Darebin Council's decision to declare their district in a climate emergency. This critical step has since been followed by numerous cities and countries all around the world. 

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Jane's self defence proved articulate and powerful. She explained how for over a decade she was involved in numerous different attempts and tactics to change government policy and alert the public to the rapidly-growing threat of climate change. She finally left her job as a psychologist in 2015 because she feared that time was running out. Eventually, along with so many others, Jane has concluded that peaceful civil disobedience is the only way to get the message across and to catalyse the changes needed to avert global catastrophe. Her accompanying power-point presentation left no doubt that the world is in a parlous state.

 

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 The timing of Jane's trial was uncanny.

Yesterday the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) which includes 243 leading scientists from 60 countries, presented their report. This assessment will be crucial when global leaders meet in November to determine the future of the planet. 

According to the IPCC: "The Climate Crisis is 'unequivocally' caused by human activities...The Earth could be just 10 years from heating by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius - a threshold beyond which even more serious and frequent fires, droughts, floods and cyclones are expected to wreak havoc on humanity. Alert Condition: Red!"

At the end of court on Monday no ruling was made. Time was allocated for the Prosecutor and Jane to enter submissions. (I think the best submission for Jane to enter would be the IPCC report!) After that the Magistrate will make his judgment. This process is likely to take at least a month, so watch this space. 

Congratulations, Jane, on your articulate, passionate and powerful stance and self defence. You did yourself, XR, the community and the world proud.

 

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