Jan-Marie Doogue

The Sensible Sentencing Trust, currently battling with the Privacy Commission and Pedophile Human Rights Commission has decided to launch a website highlighting dud judges…and boy aren’t the judges upset by it all.

Here’s a hint for them, stop cuddling crimes, hugging pedophiles and start sentencing people to the maximum not the minimum they can think of.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust plans an assault on the judiciary with a website designed to “out bad judges”.

The victims’ advocacy group says it will launch the website this month but has already set its sights on two judges involved in bail decisions over which it has raised concerns.

The fresh online assault on judges has brought disapproval from government ministers, with Justice Minister Judith Collins and Attorney-General Chris Finlayson speaking against it. The judiciary have also expressed dismay over the move, with opposition from Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue.

An internet domain registry search shows the judgethejudges.co.nz site has been registered by the Sensible Sentencing Trust. It is not connected to this week’s Judging the Judges news series in the Herald.  Read more »

Shall we have a sweepstake on when the first big punch up takes place before parties …NBR explains (paid content):

ᔥ NZ Herald

It looks like Judge Harvey has jumped before being pushed on the Dotcom extradition case. He should have been a bit more circumspect with his comments with all the nerds at NetHui. Poor Harvey J., according to Bill Hodge this was a “case of a lifetime” and considering he has spent his lifetime as a District Court Judge this was to the pinnacle of his “career”…and he bottled it with an off the cuff remark in front of a bunch of dweebs. Karma really is a bitch:

The judge overseeing the Kim Dotcom extradition case has stepped down after making comments suggesting the United States was the “enemy”.

Judge David Harvey surrendered his role in the case after making comments during a copyright discussion at an internet conference.

An internet law expert, Judge Harvey had been considered the perfect choice to hear arguments on whether Dotcom and his Megaupload colleagues should be extradited by the United States to face charges of criminal copyright violation.

The district court’s chief judge Jan-Marie Doogue said Judge Harvey had made the decision to step down from hearing the case.

“He recognises that remarks made in the context of a paper he delivered on copyright law at a recent internet conference could reflect on his impartiality and that the appropriate response is for him to step down from the case.”

Disclosure: Judge Harvey is the judge who delivered a judgement longer than the Supreme Court judgement delivered in the Trinity Tax fraud case, acknowledged as New Zealand’s most complicated tax trial. That judgement was of course against me on 9 charges of breaching name suppression, all summary offenses.