Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Legal Beagle: The Police Investigation…, in reply to George Darroch,
Very roughly, what part of the law of the requires ‘intent’? Is it a small fraction, or a large one?
I would guess that most of it has some intent requirement. Certainly almost all of the serious ones have an intent requirement with respect to some aspect of the charge. Most of the laws that don't are regulatory in nature, or aren't really criminal offences.
If I kill someone, and there is intent, it’s murder. Without intent, it’s manslaughter.
Not true. You can kill someone with intent in self-defence. And a death may also be a complete accident, and not criminal at all. There is also (for the most part), an intent requirement for manslaughter, eg you intend to punch someone, who then falls and hits their head awarkdly on the concrete and dies.
However, there’s no question about intent if I’m driving above the speed limit, the charge is simply handed down.
Speeding isn't a criminal offence. You don't get convicted of it. Rather, it's an infringement offence. Those are much less likely to have an intent requirement. But even then there can be a question of intent. If you have a reasonable excuse (perhaps you were driving someone who had been seriously injured to the hospital), then that amounts to a defence.
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Legal Beagle: The Police Investigation…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Do I sense a civil suit coming on?
A civil suit was filed some time ago.
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Legal Beagle: The Police Investigation…, in reply to Cameron Pitches,
So who could potentially investigate the breach of sec 14 of the GCSB Act? Does this rely on a civil action being undertaken by an aggrieved party?
That would most likely come into a civil claim. It would be part of a criminal charge if one was laid, because a defence applies to the s 216B charge if the person had authority under the GCSB Act. Section 14 would be used to show there was no authority.
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Legal Beagle: The Police Investigation…, in reply to Cameron Pitches,
Who normally investigates illegal acts that involve the police? Surely not the police?
The police.
And isn’t the test here just intent, not criminal intent?
Yes. I happen to think the test should be criminal intent, but it's not up to me.
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Legal Beagle: Fact Check: New Bail Laws, in reply to Cameron Junge,
Am I wrong in believing that the new amendments wouldn’t have saved Christie?
Akshay Chand was under 20, so had a near autotmatic right to bail. Had the law change been in effect, Police could have opposed bail on the ordinary adult standard, so it would have been more difficult for him to get. He may still have gotten bail, but it could definitely have made a difference.
Haiden Jones, convicted for the murder of Augustine Borrell, however, has been mentioned a few times in people discussing this law, but while he had previous conviction for violence, he appears to have been on bail for aggravated assault and theft, which aren’t included in the list of serious criminal offences to which the reverse onus can apply.
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Legal Beagle: Fact Check: New Bail Laws, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Is it worth submitting?
It is worth submitting. I made a submission last time and got some changes.
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Legal Beagle: Fact Check: New Bail Laws, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
What were the pressing reasons given for passing it under urgency?
That was possibly an unnecessary dig from me. The bill had a full legislative process. The government is - this time - basically just using urgency to give themselves more time to pass a whole bunch of laws without really speeding up the legislative process.
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Hard News: Political Idol, or whatever…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Met hasn't been the one talking about being Minister of Finance, which is traditionally given to the DPM.
It has? Going back to to 1949, when we first had a DPM we have had:
Holyoake (not Minister of Finance)
Marshall (not)
Skinner (not)
Marshall again (not)
Muldoon (both DPM and MoF for one year after being MoF and not DPM for five years)
Watt (not)
Tizard (both)
Talboys (not)
MacIntyre (not)
McLay (not)
Palmer (not)
Clark (not)
McKinnon (not)MMP starts
Peters (both DPM and Treasurer)
Creech (not)
Anderton (not)
Cullen (both)
English (both)When talking about coalitions under MMP the smaller party has had the DPM twice. In one (Peters) they were in charge of the Treasury, in the other (Anderton) they weren't. So, yes, it sometimes happens, but it's pretty far short of a tradition.
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Legal Beagle: Gordon Campbell…, in reply to Lilith __,
I’d like to see Graeme answer Gordon’s reply, particularly to give his response to Gordon’s main point about the erosion of democracy.
I have answered Gordon’s reply as a comment to his piece.
Although I find it odd that the title of this post is a person’s name, not the actual topic. It makes the post seem like a personal attack, even if it is not.
As I note in my first reply, the title is a twitter joke directed at Scoop's Gordon Campbell twitter account, not at Gordon, who may not even know it exists :-)