Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Perhaps it's an issue of who'd have standing to apply to have the order enforced?
The Police, just as they did with Mr Slater.
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I got nothin'.
You know it was a three strikes law, right?
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1. Qualified Privilege is a defence to a claim in defamation.
2. It's not a defence to a charge of breaching name suppression.
3. It doesn't even apply in defamation if the publication is prohibited (e.g. by a court order).The Legislature Act 1908, and the Bill of Rights 1688 protect David Garrett for what he said in the House, but those protections don't go very far. Parliament's Privileges Committee doesn't even think the live broadcast of Parliament is protected (.pdf).
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Is s.6(3) really a privative clause that purports to exclude the courts from examining the lawfulness of an Order in Council?
No it isn't. The very existence of cl 7(5) implies that Parliament intends that the Orders-in-Council made under this legislation will be able to be held invalid for some reasons. That doesn't mean it isn't dodgy, however.
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And the law passed unanimously. What are you going to do now, Graeme?
You seem to be of the view that the only parties contesting the party vote are currently in Parliament. This is an erroneous assumption. However, I will also check what concessions were obtained before the bill passed.
Also, note that my promise began "If anything even remotely dodgy is done under this law...", I can also hope that nothing does.
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The suggestion that someone was before his time as a blogger reminds me of this wonderful animated documentary short about someone who was before his time as an animator ... forgive me for not waiting until Friday =)
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what about the former Head Defence Scientist? My guess is that his CV simply listed his military service and sporting interests, and he put the gloss on about being James Bond verbally, in interview.
And my guess with Mary-Anne Thompson was that some HR/PR type person had prepared an information sheet and had misunderstood studied for doctorate at LSE in her CV as has a doctorate and announced her to the world as Dr Thompson, which, being too embarrassed to correct, she ultimately informally adopted. I was wrong about that, so who knows?
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It still seems like an old boys (and old girls) network and that Justice Wilson didn't think he needed to announce his conflict of interest in the belief that his peers would understand because they trusted him as a friend as well as a colleague.
Conflicts of interest tend to arise between judges and the parties to the proceeedings, not between judges and counsel. It is generally agreed that a much higher level of connectedness is permitted between judges and the lawyers appearing before them than between judges and the parties appearing before them.
I don't think it really does give the flavour as you have focussed on the more extreme examples (as has Wilson's counsel). The Canadian's have removed a judge (Judge Therrien) for misbehaviour for failing to make adequate disclosure, even though he had a strongly arguable legal basis for not making the disclosure.
One of the problems you get by not hearing all the arguments :-) Certainly Carruthers did argue that the Canadian approach was basically in line with the Australian one. I do note that Judge Therrien's disclosure failure was not with respect to a case, but in his application to be a judge (the arguable bit being that the conviction he didn't disclose had been expunged/clean-slated).
I note that in the Hesketh/Beattie case the police investigated the matter first. If we were in the US, the judge and lawyers would probably be before a Grand Jury.
I make no categorical allegation of criminal offending but the circumstances do warrant criminal investigation as they go to the heart of the administration of justice.
To investigate a charge of what? In all cases where criminal offending is suspected the police or the Serious Fraud Office or whoever should investigate first and seek criminal charges if they can be reasonably laid. That's clearly recognised in our legislative scheme - one shortcut to the Judicial Conduct process is that following a conviction, the Attorney-General can act without needing to set up a Panel. But I don't believe I have seen anything here that even suggests a criminal investigation might be warranted.
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I think Chris Finlayson could have acted sooner and that an MP is going around saying just that.
1. Chris Finlayson shouldn't be acting at all.
2. There is nothing he could have done. He can't remove a judge from office or investigate a judge, that's the job of, first, the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, and, second, any Judicial Conduct Panel.without the press getting hold of this it may have never been progressed.
The matter has progressed because several people laid complaints with the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. When that happens, there is a process he is required to undertake: an initial check to see whether it is within his jurisdiction and then a review to see whether there is any cause for concern, with some options depending on the result of that investigation.
That is why it has progressed. There is nothing the Attorney-General can do to hurry it up, and nothing he can do without that process being gone through.
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an affidavit from wool grower Richard Bell which alleges that National's Kaikoura MP, Colin King, told him that Mr Finlayson would not act against Justice Wilson because they were friends.
Chris Finlayson isn't acting against Justice Wilson. Because the two were partners in law firm Bell Gully, he stepped aside from involvement in the matter the first time it got to his desk. Acting Attorney-General Judith Collins is taking the A-G role in this matter.
It seems a case of one law for the Judges and another for us.
It really doesn't. The Attorney-General's role is now pretty limited. The Judicial Conduct Commissioner makes the recommendation. He did. He recommended the appointment of a panel. Judith Collins did appoint a panel. Until that comes back to us her role is limited. Then she can accept or reject what it says.
What has not happened to Justice Wilson that you would have had the system have happen to him?