[DPF: And you're the one who made a stupid totally unsubstantiated comment. The reality is I criticise my own party probably ten times as often as any other major blogger does. So your suggestion of me writing under orders from some unknown master is puerile and insulting.

In fact I have often had senior Nat staffers very vigorously disagree with my take on an issue.

I have never ignored a major issue which is damaging to National. While on The Standard a search on the name "Mary-Anne Thompson" finds not a single post on that issue.]

Sorry Mr. Farrar, but the items you list are not the core problems. They may be the core administrative problems, but the real “core problem” is the incremental destruction of such concepts as morality, right to own private property, and personal responsibility and accountability for one’s actions, mixed in with family breakdown, poor parenting skills and parent’s wrong headed abdication of their responsibilities to the government.

PS- you’re dead on the mark tho with that “Illuminated Tiger”. What an unbelievable dickwad. (with a sappy pretentious posting handle) Crippled comprehension skills seem to be the most common factor amongst all leftist extremists.

I know you like to invent crap, but really you just embarrass yourself if you think National “bosses” want me saying the Government is going too far on law and order, when their meme is they do not go far enough. I mean seriously a first year politics student could tell you that.

Have a look at who has agreed with me on this issue – Sonic, Toad and Roger Nome. Yes the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy at work.

Try any state DPP’s office – I’m pretty sure they’d be glad to have you and the salaries are fairly generous. Better yet, come work set up as a criminal defence lawyer – you’ll be on the right side of the argument and I can ensure that the people I’m trying to help get a decent brief. Don’t worry about the money – there’s so many squabbles over mining rights and dodgy politicians suing to get reinstated to caucus (and winning!) your private client base would subsidise the virtually-pro-bono legal aid work.

And ‘outed’ on the name! A brilliant lawyer and a very good judge. Plus he and Michael Collins negotiated the Irish peace treaty of 1921, so that has to go in his favour as well. Now, if I could get away with some of his courtroom wit then I will be perfectly content in my practice!

Rex, I wasn’t aware that prosecutors are dwindling in number- where I work they are increasing quite rapidly! Is there somewhere you can point to so I can have a look at that?

Damn, sorry it’s my bi-national imprecision clouding my writing again. Prosecutors are declining in number in most states of Australia, at both Commonwealth and state levels. Not sure of the situation in NZ but it doesn’t surprise me to hear that the government is eagerly funding legions of prosecutors.

Thanks for the interesting statistics and the comment overall. Indeed Legal Aid here in Australia have turned down recent applications (and these are only ones I’ve had a hand in personally) for careless driving, stealing and ‘using a document’ prosecutions, saying these “weren’t serious enough” even though all potentially could have incurred a prison term. So goo point – some people aren’t even “lucky” enough to get an incompetent lawyer paid for!

(By the way I read a biography of the ‘first’ FE Smith last year. I’d realised he was a brilliant bloke but I hadn’t realised quite how witty he could be. He’d make a great character in a TV series, but alas the ABC get all their period stuff from the Beeb and TVNZ would want to make him a gay Polynesian Community Law Centre worker who happened to live in a house full of supermodels).

This is a huge decrease from even 20 years ago, which means that the case Rex points out is not isolated. Auckland in particular is especially problematic in this area, with around 4000 lawyers (!) and only around 240 active legal aid lawyers. Of those 240 or so, about 100 do most of the work, which in the 06/07 year was over 18,000 legal aid cases. Those criminal lawyers who can continue a criminal defence practice without doing legal aid are quick to do so, which means a lot of experience is taken out of the pool for the juniors (who are few and far between) to learn off.

Duty Solicitor is in an even worse state. A lot of them are only part time criminal lawyers who do duty solicitor to get some court time. The amount of knowledge needed to be an effective criminal lawyer is huge, and those who ‘dabble’ in it usually end up costing their client in more ways than one.

By the way, Baxter, Legal Aid is generally only granted if there is a chance that a person might go to prison for 6 months or more. If you are going to prison for less than that, then they view that as not ‘serious’ enough. I dunno, but if I went to prison even for a week I would view that as serious! Legal Aid turns down a lot of applications, I assure you.

Rex, I wasn’t aware that prosecutors are dwindling in number- where I work they are increasing quite rapidly! Is there somewhere you can point to so I can have a look at that? I take the view that the Crown is now NZ’s largest provider of criminal lawyers, something that is a shame to the profession.

Our system of law has been built up over 800 years of usually shocking practice that meant many innocent people have lost their lives to a corrrupt system. Whether you believe it or not, the protections we have now are the minimum that have developed over that time to ensure justice is done as much as possible. Otherwise the system becomes a farce and we may as well simply convict any person charged, regardless of guilt or innocence. The overall crime rate has been reducing now for around 10 years. Some individual types of crime remain comparitively high, and any crime is unacceptable, but to give up your freedoms in the hope that the police will overlook you presumes a lot. Interestingly enough, in the USA one of the first things that happens when they ‘get tough on crime’ is reduce the budget for legal aid type organisations. You see, if you have less defence lawyers then you have more people going to prison. Guilt or innocence ceases to be a factor.

But, give up your rights if you want. Just don’t complain when, if one of you should have some issue with the police, nobody believes you, nobody cares, and there are no longer any lawyers willing to assist you.

Just a thought.

There may have been some half pie argument to continue it in the days of magistrates courts where legal aid was restricted to only indictable offences where perpetrators were indigent,not these days where you have instant legal aid and duty solicitors.

Clearly you’ve never had your fate left in the hands of a legal aid lawyer, baxter, much less a duty solicitor. Or even sat at the back of the court and watched them perform. I have an acquaintance who’s currently incarcerated and whose legal aid lawyer stood up and pled her guilty to charges which could potentially have seen her imprisoned for over a decade. I’d anticipated this and thankfully she took my advice and leapt up to instead seek a remand. We’re now trying to scratch together funds for a ‘proper’ lawyer even though she is mildly brain damaged from a motor accident, has been on a benefit for years and clearly meets the criteria for aid – it’s just that it’s as good as useless to her.

In her case the Police obtained a ‘confession’ by telling her that she could go home after 36 hours in a holding cell or interview room if she’s just turn to the camera and say she did it. So she did.

Then there was the case before her, where the duty lawyer managed to helpfully get his client imprisoned for 12 months for nicking $40 out of a cash box by being completely unaware that this would constitute a “third strike”, despite the first two also being for petty matters. Or the guy who followed him, who began defending his client against 21 immigration charges only to be informed by the Police prosecutor that actually most had been withdrawn ages ago and there were only seven.

Not all legal aid lawyers are hopeless but the good ones are overwhelmed by the caseload (as are the dwindling number of prosecutors, I might add) so the courts are increasingly becoming a lottery. In that environment, to suggest reducing an accused’s rights is reckless and ill thought out.

Marie Dyhrberg needs to get over herself. The legal process has been and gone and politicians are allowed to comment. I think she’s just making a fuss in order to draw public attention to the fact that she’s now Macsyne’s lawyer. Which makes me feel some sympathy for an otherwise despicable person.

Where are the “ban everything” boys like d4j? Seem to be notably absent on this thread?

Actually, D4J has been busy posting a reasoned and reasonable rebuttal to those who are yelling for blood and guts (literally, in some cases) to be a regular part of our justice system on this thread.

An interesting conjunction of news, this. I wonder how the people shrieking for capital punishment (given they’re mostly right wing, and thus enemies of the (present) state) would feel if the law was introduced and these kinds of protections stripped away, leaving us facing the possibility that interference by both politicians and corrupt police could not only result in our incarceration, but also our execution?!

Nice dig, but are you really trying to say that Greenies dont want to ban anything are you?

Where are the “ban everything” boys like d4j? Seem to be notably absent on this thread?

How do you literally take away freedom of thought?

Firstly, the essence of a legal right is not just the ability to do something but the ability to do so without being punished by the system. Which is more to the point.

Second I imagine most people seriously participating in the argument have some idea what they mean removing the right to silence means in a jurisprundence (or a police investigation) context. While I admit I still haven’t followed your link, the particular point from Franks seems basically irrelevant.

It doesn’t mean a damn thing if the laws are not enforced and the only laws that are enforced and the only time they are enforced is when Helen wants it that way.

Taking little steps to totalitarianism is still moving in the wrong direction.