Pressure on National re Courts Bill
The NZ Herald reports that National has offered Labour negotiations on how to progress the stalled Criminal Procedures Bill.
An interesting positioning in which you have the Sensible Sentencing Trust attacking National for opposing the scrapping of most deposition hearings, while National is being defended by lawyers from the Criminal Bar Association.
There was a good debate on the blog yesterday regarding the pros and cons of deposition hearings – including some useful contributions from lawyers at the coal face.
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Tags: Criminal Procedures Bill, National, Sensible Sentencing Trust
June 4th, 2008 at 7:13 am
At this stage of the game I don’t think National needs to help Labour.
Let Labour stew in its own juices. Why should National come to the rescue?
There could be the possibility for potential horse trading (i.e EFA scrapping).
June 4th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Scrap depositions and make it easier for police prosecutions. Is that fair justice? Justice is conscience and if you lose that you have nothing. I am thankful for depo hearings in the past.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:59 am
D4J:
Bloody hell, we’re on the same page again! Here’s the part of the Herald story DPF linked to that really creeped me out:
Um, I don’t know about anyone else but what about the death of your child isn’t “traumatic” and “hideous”? I just suspect Lesley Elliott and Garth McVicar would be singing a very different tune if they were in the dock today, accused of murder.
I’m very sorry if this comes across as insensitive, but psychotherapy shouldn’t be the primary purpose of the justice system.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Lawyers at the “coal face” David?
Don’t think so David, people get dirty doing that sort of work in a way that lawyers wouldn’t like.
On behalf of my hard working miner ancestors find a different analogy.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:55 am
What I find strange not the disagreement over depositions but the bi-partisan support for eliminating double jeopardy, the requirement for a unanimous jury and even the right to a jury trial at all for serious offences. You don’t have to be a defence lawyer to think that maybe it would be better not to change those things.
June 4th, 2008 at 8:57 am
How about moaning lawyers at the money face
They always whine about how poorly they are paid when on legal aid but that is in comparison to how much they can gouge at other times not in comparison to how much most people earn per hour
June 4th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Murray: you obviously haven’t had to work with some of the clients I have had to! Coal face is often very appropriate.
Ray: The hourly rates paid for legal aid aren’t that bad if they were paid on a 40 hour week. In fact, if the rates were for a 40 hour week then all would be well and you wouldn ‘t hear a peep out of us. But when the profit for a law firm on the lowest and most common rate is $10 per hour then the total profit for an average defended case is a mere $50. And that is only if you can actually do your preparation within the three hours allowed. Now, that is three hours spent on the case, in total, over the entire course of a case lasting 6 months or more. Frankly, that is impossible. So if you do an extra hour or two for free, then you have effectively paid the government to do the work.
The fact is that Legal Aid is tightly controlled and the grants officers have no compunction about refusing to pay us extra money, whether we have done the work or not. I recently billed a case that I put 17 hours into and yet was only allowed to claim 10 hours. So I did those other 7 hours for free. You try asking your plumber to do that and see what answer you get. The thing is, if that was an uncommon event you wouldn’t hear about it, but it is not just common, it is the norm.
Every business operates on a carefully worked out rate of cost-covering and profit that combine to make up the rate charged. It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional or a tradesman. Legal Aid lawyers are being paid the same rates as they were 12 years ago. And those rates were below the average. We got a 10% increase in this years budget, so we will be fractionally better paid, but in the meantime our costs have skyrocketed.
Firms, not just big firms but most firms, are now refusing to do legal aid work. As a result, the defence bar is shrinking.
Doing criminal legal aid is not a gravy train. The big earners are mostly civil and family providers, not criminal lawyers, and those criminal lawyers who earn good money have to pay for any support staff and expert assistance out of the money they earn. Those hourly rates are not our take home pay.
National should stand firm on this bill. The idea of justice is far more important than simply convicting accused people.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:26 am
The Herald article says: “The chief High Court judge, Justice Tony Randerson, made the rare move in Saturday’s Weekend Herald of pleading with Parliament to pass the bill because of the section allowing for methamphetamine cases to be heard in the district court, relieving pressure on the overloaded High Court.”
I would hate to think that the judicial branch of Government was trying to pressure the executive branch of Government to adopt certain laws. It is a long-standing convention that MPs do not criticise Judges (yes, some MPs have felt the need to push this convention). It is also a long-standing convention that Judges don’t interfere with politics. Long may that continue.
June 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
WTF kind of parallel universe have I walked in on where National is standing up for due process of law, and ACT are part of the hang ‘em high brigade?! Did Simon Power finally grow that brain cell he’s been promising us?
My instinct is to say that this bill would be a bad move and that pre-trial hearings are an important part of the process that keeps the police honest and allows the defence to prepare. That said, it also makes no sense for the prosecution to present the same evidence twice. Proponents need to tell us how the current safeguards for innocent people charged would be maintained.
June 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Ray – your simplistic arrogance is breath taking. Legal Aid is basically working for nothing (in fact I and others have taken a number of small cases for nothing because it is easier than dealing with the bureaucracy). In Chch a graduate gets paid around $28-$32k a year. After a minimum of four years study (usually five). After five years somewhere from $55k-$80k – you know around about what a builder or a plumber gets.
So get off your high horse about lawyers being paid lots. The condescending chirping about lawyers and pay from dipshits like you would be a damnsite easier to put up with if we had the salary to match.
Btw remind me to go and tell your lawyer that you’re paid too much.
Rant over. (Good air in, bad air out!!)
June 4th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Well, Ray, the cost of legal aid pales into insignificance besides the bill for a Police force, the judiciary and courts, or even a parliamentary democracy. Total anarchy is remarkably cheap; I’d just ask you if that would be any kind of society you’d care to live in.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
The problem with lawyers and what they’re paid is precisely the same as the problem with plumbers and what they’re paid – they all get the same regardless of how good they are and, unless you know your way around the legal fraternity, the poor defendant has no way of knowing what they’re buying. Pretty much the same situation I’m in if I pick a plumber out of the Yellow Pages (and you only need to watch a few consumer TV shows to know how they’d be off air forever if it wasn’t for a steady diet of “dodgy tradesmen” stories).
I’ve had a brilliant lawyer agree to take a case on contingency (he only gets paid if I win, and what he’s paid is dependent on how much I get awarded). The other side folded so easily, and paid so generously (in order to prevent the truth coming out – I’ll leave savvy readers to guess which case that was) that he actually said “It’d be wrong of me to take $x just for that, here, have two thirds of my fee back”. Needless to say I was both speechless and grateful.
I’ve had another lawyer whose only use turned out to be the fact that he’d been admitted to the bar and I haven’t. So I sat there handing him pieces of paper from which he read statements, questions and even cross-examination. Then I put myself on the stand, got him to ask “what happened?” and extemporised for a while.
I won. I told him to stand up and seek costs. He refused – didn’t think a judge would ever make the Police pay for their mistakes. We didn’t get any costs. So I didn’t pay him. And the he had the cheek to sue. That’s the kind of lawyer we’re thinking of when we say “the bastards are paid too much”. Frankly, he should have paid me for the privilege of learning on the job. And probably winning for the first and only time in his undistinguished career.
But if I were to start a website wherein clients could “RateMyLawyer” the way they “RateMyTeacher” I’d be papered in law suits by lunchtime. And the sad irony would be that the good lawyers would be there with the bad, shrieking that this was a terrible insult to the grand traditions of the Bar etc etc.
Till there’s a way to separate the good lawyers from the bad, to pay the good ones more and even get rid of the bad ones, the profession as a whole will suffer. Much like teachers, actually.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Rex. Good lawyers get a reputation and get more and more clients. The problem is for first timers and those who do not know the system and they can get anyone (or anyone assigned). I am aware of a situation where a client actually paid more b/c they thought the bill was too light for a well done job!