law

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.

I have been thinking overnight about Len Browns ill advised witch-hunt to try to find an honest citizen more interested in transparency than he is.

It must be number three on his list of 100 things to do in his first 100 days.

The first was of course to instruct some council planners to prepare some paperwork. The second great initiative was to clean the townhall windows. After 30 days in office I would have thought we would have seen a list of 30 items but I cant find one anywhere, not on the Council website or anywhere else.

So I hae come to the conclusion that despite after 30 days and nothing since day two that the witch-hunt to find an honest citizen is the third intiative.

I cant wait for the other 97 things, and because Len Brown seems to have a problem with dates, there are just 70 days left counting today.

Of course I could be dead wrong and Len Brown actually just mouthed the pithy comment about doing 100 things in 100 days to feed that to the media. A bit like his Mayor in the Chair malarky.

Len Brown is just a bunch of slogans with the g cut off the end.

The problem with name suppression is that it can lead to aspersions being cast upon people who are innocent and because one person is afraid of his own name then people in a whole indutry can get smeared with crimes. Take the road rage guy;

The prominent financial industry figure accused of a hit and run road rage incident has lost his bid for name suppression but will appeal the decision in the High Court.

The man appeared at the Auckland District Court yesterday and is charged with wounding with reckless disregard.

Judge Greg Davis granted the man interim name suppression until the appeal is heard in the High Court.

The man is alleged to have driven his car over another man during an incident on Mt Eden Rd in September.

He is smearing a great many people by continuing to hide from his own name.

Fortunately we can help eliminate a great many from the suspect list by narrowing down the list to just those top finance industry figures who work for an interesting company.

The prominent financial industry figure accused of a hit and run road rage incident has lost his bid for name suppression but will appeal the decision in the High Court.

The man appeared at the Auckland District Court yesterday and is charged with wounding with reckless disregard.

Judge Greg Davis granted the man interim name suppression until the appeal is heard in the High Court.

The man is alleged to have driven his car over another man during an incident on Mt Eden Rd in September.

There is no valid reason for this man (is he really a man?), scared of his own name, to continue to hide.

An appeal the the court of public opinion might find him out.

What a bunch of out of date irrelevant tossers.

The Law Society has welcomed a decision that requires barristers in District Court jury trials to don gowns in a bid to bring more formality to proceedings.

The decision, announced today, was made by Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson, and will take effect on February 28.

All counsel in a jury trial in a district court in New Zealand will be required to wear a barrister’s gown appropriate to their rank.

“The Law Society is pleased. The profession is not unanimously behind this decision but a significant majority thought it a good step to ensure appropriate formality,” Law Society president Jonathon Temm told NZPA.

District court barristers had never worn gowns and this was an extension of the rule which already applied to High Courts, Mr Temm said.

Chief Judge Johnson said this would highlight to all court users the dignity required and the serious nature of matters now being conducted in the District Court.

Barristers would only need to wear gowns in jury trials which made up about 1500 of approximately 200,000 trials a year, a Law Society spokesman said.

Does this mean judges will be wearing corsets and suspenders next?

Jut after a weekend where we had our Speaker of the parliament re-impose secrecy oer MP travel spending and his constant refusal to even entertain opening up more of Parliamentary Services to the Official Information Act we have some interesting news from across the Tasman where the Federal Government is sweeping away the veil of secrecy.

Information is powerful. Very powerful. It can dispel myths and reveal the true nature of things. It can shed light on events and provide a better understanding of the decisions that have shaped our nation.

When the pieces are put together, information can reveal scandals, shine light on corruption and maladministration and even bring down governments. But equally, some information can place lives at risk and compromise a nation’s security.

Valid questions about the publication of sensitive information have been raised with the release of information about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars on the website Wikileaks.

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The Freedom of Information Act is one of the most powerful tools Australians have to get government information – about themselves or about issues of community concern. Importantly, the act also governs what cannot be released, so to protect the national interest and Australian lives.

But far from being afraid of information, we should embrace the free flow of it as a feature of a democratic nation wherever possible. And that is the approach we’ve taken on disclosure.

This is from Brendan O’Connor the Labor Minister for Home Affairs, Justice, Privacy and Freedom of Information in Australia. But wait his statement gets better.

Since coming to office, Labor has conducted the most extensive overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act since its inception, and the first tranche of those changes takes effect today.

But why is this needed? The fact is, in the decade before Labor came to office, a culture of concealment and suppression crept in, and the nation moved away from an attitude of disclosure, transparency and accountability.

What’s not secret is that this attitude of arrogance and avoidance of accountability wasn’t lost on the Australian public. It contributed in no small part to the downfall of the Howard government.

The Coalition’s practice of issuing conclusive certificates under the Freedom of Information Act was profound in its effect, successfully locking up information to prevent its release. Labor takes a starkly different view. We are determined to restore community trust in the way information is handled by government with major reform of the act.

We have already abolished ministers’ use of conclusive certificates to block access to information, but we are going much further.

Ignoring the political statement at the front it is stil admirable that they are attempting to remove “a culture of concealment and suppression”. Pity Lockwood Smith doesn’t believe in open-ness. But here is a template for open-nes we could easily adopt. Emphasis is mine.

At the core of the freedom-of-information reforms is a somewhat overdue recognition that government information is a national resource. Just like our water, minerals and beaches, information is not owned by one person but is an asset for our free and democratic nation to share.

A wholesale revision of the way freedom-of-information requests are treated begins today. A single public-interest test will override previous exemptions and new processes will compel a culture of disclosure.

We know application fees can be a deterrent. That is why, from today, there will not be any application fee for an FOI request or a subsequent internal review. Importantly, people seeking access to their own personal information will no longer have to pay any fees whatsoever.

The first five hours of decision-making time will now be free for all, slashing the expense previously faced by would-be applicants.

Probably the most controversial element of the new laws is the so-called ”disclosure logs”, which will operate from May next year. This will see responses to FOI requests published on ministerial and department websites within 10 days of disclosure to the applicant – for all to see. This is consistent with a new pro-disclosure culture where government information is owned by the public.

And with a new rulebook comes new umpires. Today, Professor John McMillanwill take up the role of Australian Information Commissioner – an independent adviser on government information.

He will be supported by the current Privacy Commissioner and the newly created Freedom of Information Commissioner. Together, they will be advocates and enforcers of the nation’s approach to FOI and privacy.

With these reforms, the Gillard government is ushering in a new era of openness. There’s an oft-quoted saying that sunshine is the best disinfectant. With this new approach, we’re opening the curtains that have been closed for so long and letting the daylight reveal our nation as it is.

John Key should cal in Lockwood Smith and give him a good smacking. If Labor in Australia can implement this then why not Labour in New Zelaand support similar changes? If the big parties won’t then how about The Greens or Act embracing changes like this?

The pity is that parliament is run by the politicians, literally the foxes are in charge of the hen house. They don’t want their secret deals exposed, they don’t want public scrutiny. In aAustralia on top of all these changes they also have the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption), we have no such protections from the rapacious and secret actions of our politicians.

It is time for some sunlight here in New Zealand. Instead of a Speaker unilaterally re-imposing unconscionable secrecy and a Justice Minister trying to control the internet we should be embracing open-ness and honesty. We should be passing laws like Sweden and Iceland have to protect sources, to welcome freedom of information and have  a goal to have the most open parliament int he world.

The Herald would be far better running a campaign to open up our parliament to the OIA than a silly two drinks max campaign.

The MSM continues to flout name suppression.

A real estate agent advertised a property as being much larger than it was, eliciting a complaint to a state authority.

Instead of 3.7 acres she advertised 4.9 acres, the Real Estate Agents Authority found, censuring her and saying she engaged in unsatisfactory conduct, “albeit at a low level”.

The authority suppressed her name, the name of her agency and her geographic location.

I wonder if the accompanying photo is a breach, if not, and I was Eastons, I would be mad as hell.

When you let pedo-friendly pinkos run law and order you get the debacle we had this week on alcohol reform by Pedobear Simon Power.

He should resign. And go back to defence.

“where Britain, the United States and Australia go, we go”

At least he understands we are on the blue team, not the red team, or the yellow team.

There has also be a poignant lesson from across the Tasman in the past week

Those who follow Australian politics know that Tony Abbott turfed out Malcolm Turnbull in a spill about 9 months from the election. Abbott won the leadership because Turnbull was getting a hiding from Rudd, and the coalition had real doubts about climate change. The graph below is pretty forthright. Abbott takes over a train wreck, and miraculously fixes it up and gets within a whisker of winning.

The difference between Abbott and Turnbull is Abbott understood that being in opposition means opposing. Not pandering to the doctors wives etc, but getting in and beating the crap out of your opponent, day in, day out, so they fear going into the house or fronting the media because you have put them under so much pressure they start making mistakes.

Unfortunately for Tony he opposed so well the ALP knifed Rudd and put in Gillard, and the dynamics of the race change having a woman prime minister. Regardless of this, Tony gave the Libs a chance by hammering away at the ALP, and now has a chance of being prime minister.

If readers think about what this means in New Zealand, at some stage National will go into opposition, and at some stage John Key will no longer be leader. National MPs then will have to choose who is going to lead them against Labour. If we follow the Australian experience, a wet or a member of the liberal elite is going to be useless. Someone tough who isn’t afraid of a scrap or taking a few hits will put you back in play far quicker than a wet.

This means that National MPs would be outright insane to have Bill English as leader, especially after his 20.93% in 2002. Aspiring presumptive leader (in his own mind), the pedo-friendly Simon Power is another wet in the Malcolm Turnbull mold and he will get a hiding too. The stand out contender when National goes into opposition or when the going gets tough in Government has to be Judith Collins because everyone knows she will oppose, not wring her hands in anguish when the nasty Labour Party do something monumentally stupid that is likely to fuck things up for us all.