The rule of law is under attack again, and nobody seems to care.
Sometimes it's hard to believe Judith Collins is a lawyer. It's even more astonishing that she was once vice-president of the Law Society.
I haven't seen full details of National's new law and order policy, but it appears that the Parole Board will be given the power to order the further detention of people beyond the term of their sentence, if they are deemed a danger to society.
Collins is trumpeting this as a get-tough measure to protect the community.
In effect National has decided that a group of people who have already been convicted and sentenced will now have their sentences extended. They will not be detained for longer because of any new crimes they have committed since first being sentenced, but because they might commit further crimes in the future.
Locking people up past the end of their sentence is the sort of thing despotic regimes do. It is an affront to the rule of law and yet another erosion of our civil liberties. Once again this government is showing its authoritarian tendencies, and like all authoritarian regimes it is justifying its behaviour by claiming the public are in danger.
But if the public are in danger it is this Government that threatens them. No government is perfect, but I am struggling to recall a past government as contemptuous of proper democratic and judicial processes as National is.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
4 comments:
I welcome comments, but I ask commenters to follow a few simple rules:
1. I delete anonymous comments. Please use either a name or moniker. I am not asking anyone to reveal their secret identity. Just don't call yourself "Anonymous".
2. Please don't abuse or defame others.
3. Moronic or nonsensical comments may be deleted.
4. I don't often exercise the heavy hand of censorship, but I do reserve the right to delete any comment I don't like, for any reason.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
One is tempted to ask: was a she a good lawyer? And then to remember that lawyers are a cross-section of the good, the bad, and the incompetent.
ReplyDeleteWho would not share your concern about the abitrary imposition of further custodial sentence by an apppointed board? Presumably, not the National Party!
You make it sound like the policy is targeted at left-leaning bloggers rather than those who long since lost the right to be called human. If it keeps the likes of William Bell & Stewart Wilson (aka "Beast of Blenheim") off the streets, then it can only be good. Besides, unlike despotic regimes, we can always vote out the party and repeal the law. Methinks however that is unlikely. Labour would not want to be seen as "soft on crime".
ReplyDeleteMcGrath,
ReplyDeleteWilliam Bell is serving a term of life imprisonment - this policy will not touch him. It will (potentially) affect the "beast of Blenheim". However, it also would have affected another muliple sex offender against children, who never admitted his guilt and refused to undertake any rehabilitation measures ... Peter Ellis. Happy for him to be locked up for the rest of his life (or, at least until he admits he did that which he clearly did not)?
Peter Ellis was a model prisoner if remember correctly. The new law would not apply to him.
ReplyDelete