Sunday paper lies to boost circulation!
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010Here’s the Sunday Star-Times headline from last week: Sex attack gets drunk driver off This is almost true. To be precisely accurate, however, it should have read: Sex attack doesn’t get drunk driver off The story is about a woman who was convicted of drunk-driving in the middle of the night after she said she […]
Stormin’ Norman
Monday, June 21st, 2010So police have investigated the incident in which Greens leader Russel Norman claimed to have been assaulted by members of the Chinese delegation who wrenched a Tibetan flag from his grasp on the grounds of Parliament… and concluded that there is “insufficient evidence to substantiate any assault charges at this time”. Police say the “available […]
Offensive language
Monday, June 21st, 2010“Of course we have freedom of speech in New Zealand, but that doesn’t mean we have to use that freedom of speech to cause offence to people, particularly to overseas visitors.” — Murray McCully, criticising Greens leader Russel Norman for his protest against Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet. “Freedom to speak only inoffensively isn’t worth […]
Off-Target
Friday, June 11th, 2010The BSA has just given TV3’s hidden-camera wielding consumer affairs show Target a spanking for wrongly claiming that Cafe Cezanne’s chicken was infested with faecal coliform. Turns out, Target had got its samples mixed up. Worse than that, Top Shelf, the company that produces Target, initially provided wrong information to the cafe about when the sample […]
Siemer’s right-to-jury case
Friday, June 11th, 2010Predictably, Vince Siemer is not happy about the Supreme Court’s 17 May decision to cut his contempt sentence to 3 months instead of 6. (In fact, he has applied to have it recalled. Good luck with that, Vince). For someone who regards the NZ judiciary as largely corrupt, he’s a glutton for punishment: he goes […]
Open up Parliament too!
Friday, June 11th, 2010The latest Ministers’ expense relevations once again demonstrate the value of transparency and the shakiness of the assurances that “systems are in place to ensure propriety”. Good on National for increasing the level of transparency. But since they’re so hot on it, why not bring Parliament under the Official Information Act too (and the Attorney-General […]
UK defamation reform bill on the way
Thursday, May 27th, 2010Lib-Dem peer, Reynolds lawyer and free speech thinker Lord Antony Lester has drawn up a Defamation Bill to try to even the balance between speech and reputation in the UK. Details are sketchy at the moment, but the proposals seem to include a requirement that plaintiffs prove some sort of “real harm” and corporate plaintiffs […]
Morse wins right to appeal flag-burning conviction
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Yay! Tony Shaw, Felix Geiringer and I have been granted leave by Supreme Court to argue that Valerie Morse should not have been convicted of offensive behaviour for burning a flag at an Anzac Day ceremony. Along the way, hopefully we’ll be able to sort out how the Bill of Rights applies to open-textured criminal […]
Siemer wins reduction in sentence for contempt
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Vince Siemer has reshaped the law of contempt in New Zealand. The Supreme Court has ruled 3-2 that the Bill of Rights right to a jury trial applies to those charged with contempt, since they face potential jail terms of more than 3 months. But since it’s unfeasible to give all contempt respondents jury trials, […]
Price wins chocolate fish
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010In a recent speech Law Commission President Sir Geoffrey Palmer laid down a challenge: define “privacy”. He promised a chocolate fish for the best entry. His view is that privacy defies definition. I proved him wrong. This is the correct definition of privacy: Privacy is what people believe they have lost when they complain about […]
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