NZ Lawyer column
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011In my recent NZ Lawyer column, I reverted to a blog format: Let’s face it. You’re busy people. You have short attention spans. So let’s move to a blog format and you can graze the bits you find most interesting. Pride or prejudice?Some of you may have seen my star turn on TV One News unpacking […]
Staggering bunk from Collins over surveillance bill
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Apparently, Police Minister Judith Collins has a law degree. That was not evident during her performance on Morning Report today. Was she deliberately misleading us, or did she simply not know what she was talking about? She said: Actually, video surveillance has been used by the police with the support of the Court of Appeal […]
NZ tops OIA study
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011A new international study ranks NZ number one for freedom of information. Countries around the world were sent information requests relating to their budgets. We passed with flying colours. A depressing number of other countries flunked.
Submission on the Video Camera Surveillance Bill
Thursday, September 29th, 2011Felix Geiringer and I drafted a submission on the Bill, and got it in with 5 minutes to spare before the midnight deadline. (Hope you enjoyed your opportunity for public input, people.) Here it is: Submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committeeon the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill SUMMARY OF VIEWS We […]
Video camera surveillance and the Urewera defendants
Friday, September 23rd, 2011I’ve been spending spare moments in the last few days trying to get my head around the Supreme Court’s decision (available here; it’s R v Hamed). I’m not sure I really understand it. But then, that puts me in good company: Attorney-General Chris Finlayson and the Police Association’s Greg O’Connor don’t seem to understand it either. What I’m really interested in […]
Did the Crown breach the suppression order in the Ureweras case?
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011The Crown tells us that as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Urewera case, there is no longer sufficient evidence to justify the continuation of the proceedings against a number of those charged solely under the Arms Act… That is, the Crown has revealed that the Supreme Court has ruled some […]
A thought
Monday, September 5th, 2011It’s worth pausing to reflect that Valerie Morse went to the lengths of burning a flag at an Anzac Day dawn ceremony to shake us out of our complacency and start questioning our involvement in foreign conflicts (the banner she was trying to draw attention to specifically mentioned Afghanistan). Nicky Hager’s book suggests that we […]
Getting it right
Monday, September 5th, 2011Nicky Hager’s surname is pronounced HAR-ger. You’d think people would know that by now.
Other People’s Wars
Thursday, September 1st, 2011As a few of you know, I vetted Nicky Hager’s new book, Other People’s Wars. It’s on sale now. I recommend it. Just as I found his last book, The Hollow Men, to be an education in the dark arts of political marketing, for me this one is an education our sickening suck-up to the […]
Taking rights seriously
Thursday, August 4th, 2011So I am sitting in the public gallery of courtroom 9 in the Wellington District Court building, watching a Human Rights Review Tribunal case. Beside me is Dr Rayner Thwaites, who teaches at Victoria University’s law school and has a close interest in discrimination issues. He starts taking notes. Within minutes, he is approached by […]
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