In the last year, 17 people have been killed in police chases. Many more injured. They might be criminals but they don’t deserve to die. Yet the Police policy – chase anything that flees – is killing them. The carnage needs to end. The human and financial cost is unbearable. But the Police are determined to continue. The government needs to step in.
Simon Power yesterday introduced the new “Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill” to Parliament, touting it as “the biggest change to the criminal justice system in 50 years”. It certainly is that. It proposes doing away with trial by jury for a significant range of offences. It proposes allowing a trial to go ahead without the defendant present. In other words, it looks like yet another attack on fundamental rights…
The Government is removing your Right to Silence in TWO Bills before the House. The much-improved Search and Surveillance Bill, and the Alcohol Reform Bill. Ripping up civil rights fought for over centuries that ensure a fair legal system, destroying a free press – all without much thought or care.
Otago Law Professor Paul Roth says possible law changes by the Key Government to provide more tax-payer funded charity to corporate giants Warner […]
No Right Turn asks some questions about the behaviour of the Independent Police Conduct Authority in deeming the release of information about unlawful behaviour by the Police as “not in the public interest”. There are few safeguards on the police – perhaps the main one should explain its decision in this case.
“They are blue – to match other uniforms in the justice sector such as police.” These words from the Police Minister are very difficult to misconstrue. The choice of colour was deliberate and in case everyone has forgotten, the uniforms were olive to make the clear distinction of Prison Officers from Police. The Government is blurring the distinction.
When Justice Bill Wilson was accused of serious misconduct, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson didn’t want to investigate telling fellow National MP Colin King “Justice Wilson is a mate of mine and there’s no way I am pursuing this any further”. Now, Wilson’s got a $885,000 golden handshake from the government to make the issue go away.
On Thursday, the 2010 Organised Crime Assessment for New Zealand was released to the public.
Essentially it told us what we already know; we have a problem, we know what the problem is, and we’re failing to solve it. It is time we approached the problem rationally and responsibly.
A few days ago Charles Chauvel wrote a piece on Red Alert on why Labour voted for CERRA. I have two big problems with it. 1) Labour may have won concessions that improved CERRA but they didn’t get the key one. 2) There’s a dangerous mindset in the position that Labour had to vote for dictatorship or get pilloried in the media and lose votes.
Garth McVicar is head of ‘tough on crime’ lobby group the Sensible Sentencing Trust. David Garrett is a serial offender who now faces further criminal charges for perjury.
So naturally McVicar is backing Garrett to head up a new hard-line law and order party.
David Garrett’s theft of a dead child’s identity is a revolting offence that violated our passport system and distressed the family. He lied to the Police when arrested and lied to the Court about having no prior convictions. Why did he escape conviction when others were being jailed for the same offence? Because he’s a lawyer. The elite looks after its own.
The Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act is a Dictator’s Charter, and all we can do is hope Brownlee doesn’t abuse it. Even the Herald is against the unwarranted and excessive powers that have been conferred on one man with no meaningful checks or balances. This isn’t about Left or Right but too many on the Right seem happy with unfettered State power.
The Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act gives the Government the power to pass Orders in Council overriding nearly every law. That makes ministers, not Parliament, the sovereign power in this country. Scary stuff, which I haven’t seen justified by the facts of the quake recovery.
The Napier Earthquake led to the earthquake-resistant building standards that have proven so valuable in Christchurch. The EQC was founded after the Wairarapa Earthquake. World War 2 and the threat of air raids led to the creation of Civil Defence. What lessons can we learn from the Christchurch Earthquake? Better standards building on around liquefaction-prone ground seems like a priority.
The Civil Defence Emergency Act gives the authorities some extraordinary powers and has seen a handful of people in Christchurch very rapidly tried and summarily convicted of some unusual offences. It reminds us that the State holds huge powers in reserve for times of crisis. It speaks to the strength of our institutions and the people who operate them that these powers aren’t abused.
Number of recorded offences in the 2008 calander year: 431,383
Number of recorded offences in the 2009 calander year: 451,405
Number of unsolved crimes in Judith Collin’s first year as minister: 235,787, up 5,000
Number of cars crushed: 0
Strip searched by the dog-control officer, your home computer hacked by the Pork Board and the Commerce Commission putting 24-hour cameras in your bedroom. It’ll all be fine once the new Search and Surveillance Bill goes through. Oh, and you lose your right to silence. And the need for a warrant is reduced. And…
“Yes, I breached those orders, because they were bullshit, and should never have been made!” That’s what you could have – should have – said. That was the apparent basis for your whole seemingly-crazy crusade. But you denied the charges. Then refused to appear in the witness-box. You made it abundantly clear that the entire exercise was all about getting noticed.
The government’s alcohol reforms are so typical of this government: criminalise someone to be seen to be doing something, while ignoring the root causes of the problem. This is a government that would rather make a criminal of a good parent who lets their son’s mate have a beer at a BBQ than make it harder for booze barons to hook kids into drinking.
What do you do when you find science inconvenient to your ideology? Why, you strike it down! Burn the heretics! Or in the modern equivalent, you set the lawyers on them, and try and have the facts declared illegal.
Finlayson says that paying compo to women abused by cops would “open the floodgates”. In other words, he reckons all the other claims that would come out of the woodwork would cost too much. What’s right is right. No matter the cost. ‘Floodgates’ is just an admission that the hundreds have been harmed. This government doesn’t have the guts to do right by them.
It just gets worse: “The Government has rejected a secret forum’s recommendation that 10 women who alleged sexual misconduct by police officers get reparation.” Sadly, I think this is just the Nats being cheap and unwilling to face their responsibilities. They don’t care about the victims of police abuse, they care about saving a few dollars to pay for tax cuts.
The activities of the dishonorable Minister for Social Development and Employment Paula Bennett has been increasingly reminding me of the blogger Whaleoil. Consider the number of common points of obnoxious behaviour. The similarities are quite striking. The main difference is that one is a blogger opinionating on current affairs and the other is a minister of the crown with the responsibility for large numbers of dependent people.
The Economist has a great article looking at the American propensity to deprive their citizens of their liberty for trivial offenses. We have the same stupid political ratcheting here that causes it. A large part of that is fueled by groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust. There needs to be a broad agreement across the political spectrum about such hysterical groups before they cause more damage.
Over at No Right Turn, I/S I filed an OIA request for specific information on the handling of Cabinet conflicts of interest. The request has been declined. In the following post (reprinted) I/S sets out the “Questions the government will not answer”.
So often, Parliamentary debates are pointless and pro forma. What a revelation, then, when Simon Power was so swayed by the Left’s MPs’ arguments that he hand-wrote an amendment to his Courts (Remote Participation) Bill guaranteeing defendants the right to choose to appear in person. A good day for rights. A good day for Parliament. Power for PM?
Currently the “hunt” is on for whistleblowers in cases both within NZ, and internationally. When a whistleblower takes on a big organisation over a matter of genuine public significance they are taking a risk, in some cases a huge risk. Let’s hope that there will always be people who are brave enough to make sure that we the people know the truth.
Last Queen’s Birthday Weekend 10 people died on the roads and 32 were seriously injured. Last Easter another 12 dead, the highest toll in 18 years. This Queen’s Birthday police announced a massive crackdown on speeding. Idiots such as DPF denounced it as a “revenue gathering exercise”. But events have proved them very wrong, with the lowest toll in 54 years.
One of the most popular uses of trusts is to hide income for tax avoidance or evasion. So, I was happy to read about the IRD’s success in a recent court case against two surgeons. The court found these two very rich men had used trusts to avoid tax to the tune of $168,000. The case will have big ramifications, potentially shutting down one of the biggest tax rorts in the country.
This is a crime bill that is not expected to deter or reduce crime and may increase murders. That’s not acceptable. It’s not even really a crime bill, it’s a stupid PR stunt that puts lives at risk. No responsible government would pass it. But this is not a responsible government. It is willing to cause more murders for the sake of appearing tough on crime.
In Florida, a legislative plan to close as many as five state prisons and ship inmates to a private prison run by GEO Group was scaled back last month.
The feds may be searching to see if former state House Speaker Sansom received any kickbacks from the company. The GEO group are also contenders for running private prisons here.
Anyone who still thinks the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is going to have any real world effect in New Zealand needs their head read. The first thing that a court will do when someone cites the DRIP as authoritative is check what the Government said about its intention to be bound by it. It will find statement after statement that the Government sees it as purely symbolic.
Kelvin Davis: It goes to show how high the aspirations of some of our Maori leaders are. We now aspire to bung the bros in the hinaki and watch the dollars roll in. The longer and more often we can put them away, the sooner we will be able to afford to expand the prison and lock even more away. With the soaring crime rate and high Maori unemployment everything is coming together nicely.
A senior judge is under investigation for sitting on a case in which his business partner, whom he owed $240,000, was a lawyer. The investigation could result in a recommendation to the Attorney-General that the judge be sacked. But Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has trampled over the process and has said he will not act against Justice Wilson, who is a mate of his from their days at Bell Gully.
I don’t have a problem with MPs being able to get public funding for court cases arising from their professional activities. You wouldn’t expect private sector employees who are taken to court over their actions in their job to be forced to pay their own way. But what a sense of entitlement Gerry Brownlee has.
