Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Field Theory: And they're off!, in reply to Russell Brown,
Aren’t the judgey sports sort of the point of the Olympics, though?
Citius, Altius, Fortius?
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Not saying I agree with removing particular sports, but if a sport needs multiple judges, in order to ensure some type of fairness, or if the highest and lowest scores get dropped, maybe that's more the type of judging which is concerning.
A tennis line judge can make a wrong call, but it can be pretty easily shown to be wrong with a replay, or something like that. A sport like diving, or gymnastics, where you add together the scores of a bunch of different judges, removing the outliers, or boxing or weightlifting, where it's best 2 out of 3, is in a different league.
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Could people really not see a "2012"? Or are you all havin' a larf?
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Oh and like 2.5 hours of rugby and league on Sunday morning.
I’d put money on Prime being contractually required to air that semi-final. Part of the agreement between SANZAR and Sky for the Super 15, including free-to-air replay rights will include Sky guaranteeing that they will air certain matches free-to-air. Sky will not be permitted to pay for the free-to-air rights so that they can then not air games free-to-air in order to encourage people to pay for Sky.
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Legal Beagle: Presuming innocence, in reply to WH,
It’s telling that everyone agrees the law should be amended to ensure that what Banks did is illegal going forward.
I believe everyone is also in agreement that the law should be changed so that what Len Brown did is also illegal in the future.
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Legal Beagle: Johndotbanks - the law is…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
I am so sick of this continuing smear against one of the best politicians this country has had.
I'm not sure being good (or even being the best) at being a politician is regarded by most people as a compliment.
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Legal Beagle: Presuming innocence, in reply to WH,
John Banks was advising a businessman on how to make anonymous donations to his fringe political party, deliberating circumventing our election laws in the process.
This was about John Banks' mayoral campaign, not the ACT Party.
Your takeaway from the decision not to prosecute is that the Police have infringed Banks' right to be presumed innocent?
No. My takeaway was that the police thought Banks was a lawbreaker, and then that Banks was a lawbreaker, and then what on Earth is Banks doing signing legal documents he hasn't read. You can read my initial view in my earlier post, or on Twitter, where my observation:
Police seem to be saying "John Banks knew who made some donations declared as anonymous, but simply didn't know he wasn't declaring them".
got a few RTs.
And then I realised my view was somewhat at odds with the position I'd taken after Police announced their decision over Bradley Ambrose, where I sympathised with the view they were "smearing" him. The underlying facts were agreed in that situation too: Ambrose recorded conversation, media asked to leave, no-one else heard conversation, gave recording to newspaper etc.
That pose presents your argument as being above the fray, but it confuses the presumption of innocence with the entirely worthwhile attempt to draw civic meaning from what John Banks did and did not do.
I think there may be a difference between the public having their view, and media commentators addressing the political aspects of the case, and media organisations sermonising about how appalling MP X's behaviour is, and some official organ of the state coming out and saying: this guy is guilty, but we're not going to charge him. We can make what we like out of the situation, but is is the job of the police to tell us?
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Legal Beagle: Presuming innocence, in reply to merc,
NZ, correct me if I am wrong has a unique situation in this regard and that of their ability to hire private lawyers for enacting public prosecutions.
Not unique. The Crown Prosecution Service in the United Kingdom regularly briefs (private) barristers to prosecute cases.
In New Zealand, each region (I think each High Court district ... checks ... each High Court district + Tauranga) has a Crown Solicitor, who tends to be in private practice, but really, isn't all that different from one who is not. Prosecutors are required to act independently of police, and can amend and/or drop charges even over police objection.
One problem of the system is that, being in a private firm, it is in the financial interests of the firm to continue with a prosecution, although I don't know that it has been seriously suggested that this influences decisions. The appearance is certainly unfortunate.
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Hard News: John Banks: The volunteer did…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The only differences I can parse from that is that:
- the less serious offence (not having personal knowledge of the falsehood) carries a larger fine for national elections
- the time limit is three years for national, six months for localThe major differences are in bits about what the returns have to include. Large anonymous donations are not allowed to be made to parliamentary candidates. Trusts cannot be used to hide the names of donors to parliamentary candidates. etc.
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Hard News: John Banks: The volunteer did…, in reply to Sacha,
Like reading the return, perhaps?
Seriously, how do the Police justify not laying charges and letting a court judge the matter?
There is a six month time limit for that charge. Approximately 10 months had passed when they were first asked to investigate. Had police chosen to charge in that circumstance, I'd be calling for heads. We have limitation periods for a reason, and even if that reason is stupid, they're still the law and I expect police to abide by them.