law

I contacted Christopher Pryde, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Fiji via email. I asked about the ad that the NZ Law Society banned and the details of the position. His reply:

There is only one at this stage but it is fairly high level. I had intended to advertise some more junior posts in a few weeks. I’m still always interested in hearing from anyone who might be interested in working in the office.

This position, as with my position and all positions in the office are non-political which means we look only at whether there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable prospect of conviction in court. As Director, the decision to prosecute (or withdraw charges) is mine alone and I receive no directions from any government minister and certainly not the military.

Here is the job ad the NZ Law Society banned:

The Job Ad the NZ Law Society banned

The Law Society is now censoring recruitment advertisements in Law Talk. The Fiji of Directorate of Public Prosecutions wanted to advertise for qualified New Zealand lawyers for positions they have available. This would of course been a good thing with New Zealand qualified lawyers able to impart their knowledge and belief on the Fijian legal profession.

Instead the Law Society has banned the adverts essentially wanting to censor the advertising of jobs in Fiji.

Christopher Pryde, the Director of Public prosecutions says:

An email to the Office of the DPP this morning (3.2.12), said “The New Zealand Law Society Board has decided unanimously that the NZLS will not accept advertisements for legal positions in Fiji under the current interim military regime”.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Christopher Pryde, said it was unfortunate that the NZLS was involving itself in politics and preventing New Zealand lawyers from hearing about job vacancies in Fiji.

“It is unfortunate that New Zealand lawyers are being denied the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they wish to take up legal positions in Fiji. By refusing to allow us the right to advertise, the NZLS is effectively censoring what New Zealand lawyers know about Fiji.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in an independent office and the Director of Public Prosecutions has the sole responsibility for criminal prosecutions in Fiji. This is without recourse to any Government minister, including the Attorney-General. The Office in that regard is non-political.

This is the bizarre part of the Law Society’s action. They think that this is a “smart sanction”. In fact it is highly dumb.

What shall we do with people charged with rape or robbery or murder? Send them to New Zealand?” he said.

Mr Pryde said he remains concerned that the NZLS continue to have an inaccurate picture of the Fijian situation, in particular of the judiciary and the courts.

“My invitation to the NZLS still stands. They are welcome to visit Fiji and meet and talk to anyone without restriction so that they can obtain for themselves a first-hand appraisal of things in Fiji. In the meantime, we would appreciate the NZLS allowing lawyers to decide things for themselves and allow us the right to advertise” he said.

Oh..so the Law Society has acted based on the inane drivel published by Barbara Dreaver and Michael Field, both of whom haven’t been in Fiji for some years and they also haven’t haven’t bothered to go anf find out for themselves the situation in Fiji.

Actions like this are stupid and hardly contribute to enabling Fiji to return to democracy. in point of fact they hinder the path to democracy by allowing the impression that independent bodies such as the Directorate of Public Prosecutions to be maligned as political corrupt.

One thing the Law Society has done though, by dabbling in foreign politics, is opened themselves up to a challenge for whatever status they enjoy with the Charities Commission.

Continuing my series about lawyers being dogier than politicians is this news from Australia:

SEVENTY-SIX solicitors were convicted of criminal offences in one year – including 12 who were guilty of serious charges including child pornography, indecent assault and fraud.

But most continue to practise.

Another 12 solicitors and two barristers became bankrupt and two solicitors faced tax offences, according to annual reports for the last financial year. Those 64 solicitors convicted of lesser offences faced mainly driving charges, including drink-driving.

For the past decade, lawyers have been required to disclose charges, bankruptcies and other ”show-cause events” to their professional associations. The number of those convicted of serious offences has fallen from a high of 23 two years ago.

Last financial year, only four of the solicitors on serious charges and one who committed a tax offence had their practising certificate suspended and the Law Society took no further action in the other 85 cases, deciding ”the offence did not impact upon the solicitor’s fitness to practise”.

But, says the Legal Services Commissioner, Steve Mark, for legal reasons it is very difficult for the professional bodies to stop lawyers from practising. In 2004, a High Court case ruled a solicitor convicted of aggravated child sexual assault be allowed to practice, finding that his conviction did not amount to professional misconduct.

I’d say the evidence is pretty conclusive that lawyers are dodgier than politicians.

David Prosser wants dairy owners, taxi drivers and bottle store owners given the ability to arm themselves. But what about ordinary home owners?

Do we need a castle law here? Or should we just shoot first and ask questions later?

In North Carolina they are strengthening the “Castle Doctrine Law”:

It soon will become easier to justify cases in which deadly force is used in self-defense.

Changes to the state’s Castle Doctrine Law that take effect Thursday do not require people to run before they fight back with a gun. The law expands the use of reasonable deadly force to include cars and workplaces if a person under attack fears imminent death or serious bodily harm.

The Castle Doctrine, rooted in English common law, is based upon the idea that a person should be safe from attack while at home.

“You don’t have to run to the far part of your house if there is a threat,” said Terry Lamb, owner of The Gun Vault. “People like that and are very positive about these changes.”

The new law presumes that a person who unlawfully and by force enters or attempts to enter intends to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence.

“This change should make things a little more clear for people and more comfortable,” said Lt. Robert Hamilton of the Guilford County Sheriff’s Department. “There is a presumption now that if you fear for your life, you can use deadly force. The presumption before was that you had to retreat first.”

The changes also ease the civil liability gun owners can face if they shoot and kill or injure someone committing a crime against them.

“You can use your gun for self-defense in more places than before,” Lamb said. “Most people think that is a good change.”

“The presumption now is that the vehicle is more like a residence and you can protect yourself against a car jacking,” said Hamilton, who works in the legal process division that handles concealed carry handgun permits.

Phillip Field is still corrupt, his appeal has been thrown out. Only a former Labour minister would argue that he shouldn’t be convicted of corruption because he only stole a little bit from his constituents:

The Supreme Court has dismissed disgraced former Labour MP Phillip Field’s appeal against his conviction for bribery and corruption.

Field was released from jail 10 days ago. He was two years into a six-year sentence after being found guilty in October 2009 of 11 charges of bribery and corruption and 15 of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Field was charged after then prime minister Helen Clark ordered an inquiry into allegations he had traded immigration favours for tiling, painting or plastering work on his properties in New Zealand and Samoa.

The Court of Appeal dismissed Field’s appeal against conviction and sentence so he took it to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court.

However, a panel of five judges has unanimously dismissed his appeal.

The judges said in their finding there must be a “de minimis defence” available for people such as MPs whereby gifts of token value – such as a rugby jersey – were acceptable.

However, the services Field had received were worth about $50,000, and that could not be considered de minimis.

An interesting case in the Canadian Supreme Court where they have found that merely linking to something does not create a libel.

The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously ruled that online publications cannot be found liable for linking to defamatory material.

The decision effectively shields anyone who publishes a link, as long as the linking itself is not defamatory.

The case concerned a Vancouver businessman and political volunteer who claimed a site defamed him by linking to an libellous article.

The article with the links in question was entitled “Free Speech in Canada”.

“The internet cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks,” Justice Rosalie Abella wrote in the court’s decision.

“Limiting their usefulness by subjecting them to the traditional publication rule would have the effect of seriously restricting the flow of information and, as a result, freedom of expression.”

This is interesting, as the logical conclusion is that if someone set up an anonymous site and published details of cases where people have name suppression and then bloggers and even the news media then provided a simple link to that site then they would not be deemed to be publishing that information.

The Supreme Court decision upheld the rulings of two lower Canadian courts, including the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Mr Crookes, the businessman, asked website owner Jon Newton to remove the links. Mr Newton refused.

The website did not reproduce any of the disputed material, nor make any comment about it, a crucial distinction of the case.

Free speech advocates and media policy researchers hailed the ruling.

“The court recognises that simply posting a link to material that may be libellous is a far cry from publishing or repeating the libel, let alone endorsing what has been said in the linked post,” Dean Jobb, a journalism professor at University of King’s College told Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper.

In the United States, publishers who link, and have comments and other forms of third-party material posted on their websites are protected from defamation complaints by a section of a 1996 law.

I am opposed to the death penalty anyway but there is mounting evidence to suggest it is a waste of resources.

Their report showed that since the current death-penalty statute was enacted in 1978, taxpayers have spent more than $4 billion on only 13 executions, or roughly $308 million per execution. As of 2009, prosecuting death-penalty cases cost upwards of $184 million more each year than life-without-parole cases. Housing, health care, and legal representation for California’s current death-row population of 714—the largest in the country—account for $144 million in annual extra costs. If juries continue to send an average of 20 convicts to San Quentin’s death row each year, and executions continue at the present rate, by 2030 the ranks of the condemned will have swelled to more than 1,000, and California’s taxpayers will have spent $9 billion to execute a total of 23 inmates.

There is much angst about the road toll, there is outrage in the papers and o the news when some wally goes crazy with a gun. But let’s compare and contrast the treatment by the Police and Legal system when someone goes cray with a car.

A carpenter caught driving while disqualified for the 21st time has escaped a jail sentence, but earned a verbal hammering from a judge.

“It is clear you have no sense of responsibility whatsoever for the rules that are supposed to keep the rest of us safe,” Judge Geoffrey Ellis told Michael Wilson, a recidivist drink-driver, before ordering his car to be confiscated. “I cannot envisage a time when you should be allowed to drive.”

Wilson, 39, from Upper Hutt, was stopped by police in Lower Hutt on St Patrick’s Day after a member of the public complained about his driving.

He pleaded guilty to drink-driving, after recording a breath-alcohol level of 898 micrograms – more than twice the legal limit. It was the eighth time Wilson had been caught drink-driving.

In Lower Hutt District Court yesterday, Judge Ellis said: “One can hear the outcry that you should be locked up and the key thrown away, but I don’t have that power.”

A jail term would probably be overturned on appeal, he said.

He noted that, when Wilson was arrested, it was just a month since his last offence. “And yet there you were, all tanked up and driving.”

Presumably Michael Wilson was initially disqualified from driving in the first place for very good reasons. One wonders if her would have been able to commit 21 additional firearms offenses without a licence if caught the first time. Not bloody likely, he would ahve had a stretch in the jail and quite rightly. Yest cars can kill….yep I said cars can kill because opponents of firearms say guns kill. Unfortunately their argument can now be used against them. If you commit an offense again the Arms Act the heavy weight of the Police and the law descends upion you. Yet here we have evidence of a recidivist offender carreening about the countryside in a far more lethal weapon than a shotgun or rifle.

In 2010 372 people were killed by motor venhicles.So far this year 311 people have been slaughtered by rampaging motor vehicles. According to the Public Health Association on average there are just 80 deaths from firearms in New Zealand each year. You are nearly 5 times more likely to be killed by a vehicle than in a firearms incident and yet here we have the system treading lightly with a repeat offender on the roads.

I bet the Judge wouldn’t have been so lenient with Mr Wilson had he been walking around unlicensed and disqualified with a loaded shotgun. That is the equivalent of what Mr Wilson has been doing and yet he gets less that a slap on teh wrist with a wet bus ticket.

It is high time that we had a Justice Minister prepared to implement a zero tolerance approach to this kind of crap, and one who would look into moving Judges who are clearly incompetent back to mundane clerical/gardening duties… pending an early retirement.

That could possibly a little unfair if the Law is the actual Ass… then I would expect the news tough Justice Minister to fix it!

Submission are currently being heard regarding changes to name suppression laws. If anyone needs any proof that Name Suppression isn’t working for either victims or for the general public then it is this case:

A lawyer suspended from practice for three years and ordered to pay $45,000 costs and compensation for having a “sexual liaison” with a client will keep practising pending an appeal.

A disciplinary tribunal believed the woman’s story about an incident in July 2004, effectively finding the lawyer had lied about the liaison. The lawyer’s name has been suppressed in the meantime.

Other charges a Wellington District Law Society complaints committee had brought against the lawyer were dismissed.

The tribunal suspended the lawyer for three years, censured him, and ordered him to pay the woman $5000 compensation and $40,000 costs to the NZ Law Society.

The lawyer has appealed against being found guilty and the penalty. A judge in the High Court at Wellington has delayed the penalty taking effect for about three months, when the lawyer says he will give up practice in any event.

The district law society complaints committee argued there was a risk in allowing him to continue working in the meantime among judges, clients and colleagues who did not know of the dishonesty finding made against him.

However, Justice Joe Williams decided that as an appeal had been filed the lawyer had an interest in being able to keep working and maintain the value of his practice, otherwise the appeal would be of little value. Crucial to his decision was the limited period the lawyer would continue working, he said.

Rules for some and rules for others. Nice cosy little arrangement if you happen to be a lawyer.

Surely the good people in Canterbury-Westland are entitled to know just which lawyer has been found guilty of serious unsatisfactory conduct. Surely they would want to direct their legal business elsewhere rather than risk it to someone described as reckless.

But no, we can’t know who because the legal fraternity protects their own…just like teachers.

A lawyer found guilty of serious unsatisfactory conduct by a legal complaints body has been granted name suppression.

The Law Society’s Canterbury-Westland branch lawyers’ standards committee made the ruling last month. The complainant was one of four brothers who argued over their father’s wishes after he died.

The lawyer, who represented the estate, swore an affidavit in support of High Court proceedings against the complainant and his brother on behalf of the other two brothers, while continuing as estate solicitor. He ignored the complainant’s requests to remove himself as the estate solicitor, before eventually ending his role after High Court proceedings began. He also deducted legal fees from an estate trust account without the permission of all four brothers, the trust’s executors.

The committee found the lawyer should have stopped representing the estate when requested, and “well prior to” the High Court litigation.

His decision to continue acting as estate solicitor was a “reckless contravention” of the rules of conduct and tantamount to serious unsatisfactory conduct, it said. The committee also said he should not have taken legal fees without the permission of all executors.

I for one wouldn’t want ot be working with a lawyer who acts in “reckless contravention” of the rules of conduct.