Posts by Graeme Edgeler
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
That raises an interesting question. If someone commits the offence of being unlawfully on premises, and they have the intention of being unlawfully on premises, are they (soon to be) committing a burglary?
-
Legal Beagle: On Burglary, or: Dropping…, in reply to Will de Cleene,
Is trespass counted as burglary now?
Trespass to what? A field, or someone’s front lawn are unlikely to count as an enclosed yard.
But the fact that trespass is an imprisonable offence shows how much the crime of burglary will expand under this change.
-
Legal Beagle: On Burglary, or: Dropping…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
My concern is that BORA got changed so quietly.
It wasn’t that quiet. Indeed, it altered during the passage of the bill due to public disquiet.
The current rule is that a defendant can ask for a jury if the maximum penalty is more than three months’ imprisonment.
As introduced, this would have changed to “more than three years”, which in reality would have meant at least 5 years (our hierarchy of maximum prison sentences is basically: 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 7 years, 10 years, 14 years, 20 years, life).
After public pressure, this became two years or more.
-
Legal Beagle: On Burglary, or: Dropping…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Did we ever have midemeanours and felonies in NZ?
Pretty much. Crimes/Indictable offences are basically felonies. Lesser offences (now called summary offences, but I don’t think they always were), are basically misdemeanors.
The basic distinction in New Zealand is that crimes are tried by a judge and jury, and summary offences by a Judge/JP/magistrate (depending on your era and area).
-
Legal Beagle: On Burglary, or: Dropping…, in reply to David Harvey,
More detail of the Supreme Court case please – talk about throwing out a teaser!
Siemer v Solicitor-General. I was appearing for Mr Siemer as junior, but got around half-an-hour on my feet when it was argued for the second time last week.
We had a day’s hearing late last year on the question “[do] New Zealand courts have inherent power or jurisdiction to suppress judgments in criminal cases?”
A week or so after that hearing, we received a minute from the court saying, we’d like to hear argument on two further grounds:
“[can] a person who wishes to act in a manner contrary to a suppression order may seek to have it rescinded or varied?”
and
“[can], in contempt proceedings based on breach of an order of Court, the defendant may raise as a defence that the order should not have been made or made in the terms it was?”
Counsel for the Solicitor-General raised the suppression rules in the Criminal Procedure Act (and the right of accredited media to be heard on (statutory) suppression orders, and others, by leave) suggesting that they resolved the matter, and then there was a debate about whether in fact, others needed leave to be heard.
We may find out what the court thinks (although it will be somewhat tangential), but I’m confident that what I meant when I suggested it was that anyone else covering the trial with permission of the judge would have a right to be heard. (that is, if the Court permits a blogger to cover the trial, that blogger then gets the rights of accredited media to be heard on, and appeal suppression orders etc.). It’s important for a few other reasons: non-accredited media includes bloggers, etc, but for a long time, it would have included the NBR, and it still includes many foreign media (I used the example of Ms McQuillan, the New Zealander covering the Guy murder trial for the Australia Associated Press, who became famous for her “Disco Pants”; counsel for the S-G used David Farrar, and was prompted by a judge (or two?) that he wrote Kiwiblog)
-
Legal Beagle: On Burglary, or: Dropping…, in reply to David Harvey,
there are many programmes that are capable of being used to commit a crime. There must be a co-existent intention to commit a crime which may be proven by direct evidence or inference.
That's true. But the type of crime that has to be proved by that evidence would change markedly. The example I gave the select committee was having an intention to send out election advertisements without promoter statements on them. That fine-only Electoral Act offence does not meet the definition of crime, so the overall "offending" isn't a breach of the computer crime offence provision in the crimes act, if the "intention to commit a crime" bit becomes "intention to commit an offence" it will be enough.
As I note, the effects of these changes will be far less important than the change to burglary, but I do think the principle objection is sound. Law reform bills of this nature shouldn't be used to drastically expand the scope of offences, even if those offences are hardly ever charged (has anyone been charged with the computer program possession offence?)
-
Can we just bring back the Goftas?
-
Hard News: When "common sense" isn't, in reply to Lilith __,
And yet hitting cyclists is already against the law. Why is everyone angry with cyclists for getting injured and killed?
No it isn't. At least not on its own.
-
Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Sacha,
miraculously shaved off since yesterday
The beard has been gone all year.
-
Legal Beagle: A four-year parliamentary term?, in reply to DexterX,
“why didn’t Labour fix [insert pet peeve], they had nine years to do it?”
Was [insert pet peeve] actually that broken?
Complaints of this nature are usually in response to Labour telling the Government they should be doing something now.
E.g. in 2011 Labour was complaining about how, when ANZAC Day and Waitangi Day fall on a Sunday, they don't get Mondayised. They were claiming it was a biggish deal, and that National should quickly change the law to allow people to have their usual number of stat holidays that year.
The response by some people to this claim was to the effect: "Well, ANZAC Day and Waitangi Day were also Sundays in 2005 and in 2000. If Labour actually thought this was really urgent and important, why didn't they do something about it while in office?"