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 […]
Courts hold the line against name suppression!
Thursday, July 7th, 2011The Supreme Court has just denied leave to appeal in a name suppression case. David Ingram Rowley and Barrie James Skinner have been charged with dishonest use of a document and perverting the course of justice. The trial is set for February next year. They were granted name suppression in the District Court. This was overturned in […]
Siemer in contempt
Thursday, July 7th, 2011Vince Siemer has been found in contempt of Court again for, well, for being in contempt of Court. In brazen defiance of a suppression order plastered all over the front of Winkelman J’s decision denying the Urewera defendants a jury trial, Vince posted the judgment on his website. The suppression order said: THIS JUDGMENT IS […]
Is Macsyna King being censored?
Thursday, June 30th, 2011No doubt you’ve heard that the upcoming Ian Wishart book by Macsyna King is being boycotted by a range of bookstores. Is this censorship, as some are claiming? No. Well, not really. Censorship is usually regarded as emanating from the state. There’s no law against stocking this book. There’s no legal penalty for doing so. […]
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