Et Tu Judas, er....Judith.

I'm sure the news is abroad around the World, if commissioned to do work for a New Zealand Minister, Member of Parliament don't be surprised to be stabbed in the back. In a few short days Justice Minister Collins has gone from refusing to release Ian Binnie's report, into the guilt or innocence of David Bain on the balance of probabilities, to releasing it under pressure while speaking strongly about the mistakes made in the report. Reading it tells a far different story.

Surprisingly, what emerges is that the Minister has been 'unhappy' with the report for 3 months but rather than address any problems she felt the report included with the author, she went instead to one of the parties mentioned in the report, excluding Binnie and also the applicant David Bain. Of course, as commentators have pointed out that party - a combination of the Justice Department and Crown Law, are the main adversary of David Bain and part of what was described by the Privy Council as 'an actual Miscarriage of Justice' - neutral they're not. Either is the Minister plainly. she made dark threats about David Bain suggesting he might not like what was in the report, or put another way acting condescending toward him as though she were in fact 'protecting' him rather that the obvious which was denying him natural Justice and due process. We've seen in work this week why our compensation system is flawed, it relies on Politicians to be able to divorce themselves into neutrality - something the Minister failed to do in spades.

She has spoken about bias and factual mistakes in the report, but frankly in reading it there appear to be none. Why she didn't employ normal protocol and work with the author, Crown Law and the Applicant to resolve things to her 'satisfaction' shows she is far from neutral, it also shows that without immense pressure she would have hidden the report from the public because all her language was indicating that. Not only was her language foretelling her plan but also were her actions, she had launched a 'peer review' using a retired NZ High Court Judge to review the work of a retired Supreme Court Judge and internationally recognised Jurist. She was doing all of this behind Binnie's back. She made various claims about him designed to put him in a bad public light, as incompetent or money hungry. Of course because she broke protocol he spoke in return. It emerges that far from being 'incompetent' in his understanding of NZ law he had taken advice from a prominent NZ barrister. Not only had he not sent a series of reports that the Minister described in such a way as to suggest that he was under pressure and attempting to produce something to placate the Minister, but we found that he had addressed some issues raised by the Minister in September and which required only around two pages in total of changes.

When she released the report yesterday the 'peer' review of the report made the headlines, even earlier than the report, so do did The Press of Christchurch publish a number of one-sided facts about the Bain case which appear as a link in the previous blog here. So there was a political emphasis on the entire situation. So much so that the Minister may have hoped that the public wouldn't ask why the 'peer' review, kept secret so long from Binnie in particular, or questions as to the actual constitution of a 'peer' relegated somewhat below the person's work they're reviewing was chosen, and if it was because he would act on instructions and report what he was told to report. The most simple question, needed explanation - why were Binnie and the 'peer' David Fisher QC not invited to correspond in order to make common ground on the Minister's concerns, which we know  now were in fact the concerns of Crown Law and the Justice Department.

Ian Binnie has been treated very badly here by our 'neutral' Minister of Justice. Yet while the controversy has raged many reading the report agree with it and no 'great mistakes' are being pointed out about it. The report was said to be biased by Collins in favour of David Bain, that's not the case at all. Binnie has since replied to the 'peer' criticism of him by Robert Fisher. Mr Fisher has clearly confused the criminal and civil code standards, not only that he hasn't read the Bain evidence - how anybody could possibly fail to acquaint themselves with the evidence and then go onto to criticise a evidence based report defies all reason.

On a 'lighter' note the Binnie report 'expands' on the evidence of David being strip searched and the absence of scratches or abrasions on his chest at that time, it also looks closely at the evidence  given about David having had scratches days after the morning of the tragedy - both accounts differ wildly and some may be aware the 'evidence' of one of the 2 witnesses somehow took 15 years to emerge. A lot of stuff 'emerged after' 15 years, oddly enough - all from Crown witnesses, and oddly enough a lot of misinterpretations and omissions about the evidence emerged from a certain Christchurch newspapers, the same one that broke a story barely 2 hours before the reports were released - no connection of course.