The Show (and Tell) Trial of Kim Dotcom

Interesting analysis of the Court of Appeal ruling that basically said that Kim Dotcom has to rebut the US "evidence" against him without knowing what that evidence is.

"That – unfortunately – is the hook on which Dotcom is currently being hung. His rights to freedom and family life and to reside here aren’t very well protected by our current extradition law and practice. Somehow, he has to convince the Supreme Court that in this day and age, putting more meat on the skeletal evidence currently available to him will far more accurately satisfy the needs of justice."

"Do we really want the Dotcom case to end up with this same kind of travesty? One where, in line with the Court of Appeal argument, the judge at the extradition hearing feels that his role is so necessarily limited that he must send the defendant back to face trial, even on the basis of dodgy evidence?"

More (Scoop)

Justice delayed is justice denied

This news item raises an interesting question.

Daljit Singh who was a Labour Party candidate and seven other "men accused of an alleged Auckland Super City voter scam have had their trial shifted to the High Court. Police allege that the scam involved people from throughout the North Island falsely enrolled to vote in the 2010 Auckland Super City elections.[...]It has been set down for up to eight weeks and is due to begin in October - three years after the men were arrested." NZ Herald News

Why are our courts so slow? Three years after being arrested seems a ridiculous time to wait for a trial but every day there are reports of people being sentenced for minor offences they were arrested for six months to two years ago.

 Aside from the negative effects having charges pending for so long have on the accused, this means that the victims of crime don't see justice in a timely manner.

There is a legal maxim "Justice delayed is justice denied" meaning that if legal redress is available for an injured party but is not delivered in a timely way it is effectively the same as getting no redress. This is the basis for the right to a speedy trial, so what is happening in our courts to deny that right?

Stressed out Judge?

Judge Tony Adeane, a district court judge who works in Hawke's Bay and Gisborne courts looks like he's reaching the end of his tether, and has been in the news a few times over the last couple of weeks.

Two weeks back the lawyers for 2 accused of aggravated assult on a policeman  scheduled a bail hearing then said they wanted a delay so they could apply later. Adeane is reported as saying he would not accept court proceedings "sitting in limbo"" and remanded the accused in custody the application.

Eight days ago he was reported  as jailing a man for contempt after he shouted abuse from the public gallery of the court.


Today there are two reports about him, presumably from yesterday. In the first, he is reported as saying "Taggers should expect to be sent to jail" while sentencing a tagger to community service while in the second he supposedly said "Home detention does not work as a deterrent in Hawkes Bay [...] It has not been the experience of the District Court in Hawkes Bay that home detention truly is an equivalent of prison - it doesn't have the same deterrent effect and most offenders realise that" while sentencing a recidivist shoplifting gang member to home detention.

The first two cases suggest the actions of a man who has been pushed to the point where he is starting to experience work place stress and is letting his more difficult "customers" know that he has had enough of their antics. You have to wonder why his words in the other two cases don't match his actions, ¿Que? presumes that sentencing guidelines are forcing him to issue sentences he recognises as futile and inadequate.

¿Que?'s position is that our society is at the mercy of career criminals because bad behaviour is permitted to ratchet up into criminal behaviour with no effective sanction until a person with dozens or hundreds of convictions finally cripples or kills an innocent person. It seems it isn't only the public who are victims of this process, Judge Adeanes' comments and actions makes ¿Que? think that even judges are victims of the New Zealand cirque d'justice .

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Update
The failure of community sentencing is nothing new, nor a particularly New Zealand issue; they have similar problems in England as this two year old report from the BBC shows

Community penalties 'laughed at': "One officer said: 'I know prisons are full, but they're full with the wrong people. We need to send out the message that if you've got a suspended sentence and you breach it, you go to prison.'"