I have a ultra conservative friend who for many years has had no interest in the Bain case apart from the defamation issues that have arisen. Yet this friend on considering the extraordinary behavior of Judith Collins posed the question as to whether or not she might be a 'hanger.' Pretty unorthodox suggestion until one thinks about the overall picture.
In tests for compensation the Crown have taken over the role of the Courts as used in most other jurisdictions. In fact NZ may be one of only 4 countries in the world where the King (in this case a Government Minister in Cabinet) assumes the role of what would be the Courts in open democracies. In taking this role the Minister ostensibly assumes to be accepted as fair and impartial, with full regard to due process, the Law and fairness - a difficult enough task for anybody in Government effectively investigating themselves. Judith Collins was Minister of Justice at the time when David Bain applied for compensation, she was however Minister of Police when the Crown chose to retry David despite his conviction having been set aside and ruled as an actual Miscarriage of Justice - more than a foot in the camp that decided to retry David and who were soundly thrashed in their misrepresentation of a murder/suicide as a set of murders.
Procedure being what procedure is, and at this time when there are suggested calls for the Chief Justice to recuse herself from the panel of Judges set to hear the Maori dispute over water rights, we see the Minister with no such inhibitions in 'Judging' a claim against her former department charged with perpetrating a MOJ. Still holding a steady line of the propriety of that, and giving the Minister 'a fair go' we observe that she gets a report from Binnie that finds David innocent on the BOP, a report which is promptly leaked from somewhere within the Ministry and then apparently 'sat on.' Next the Prime Minister, whilst Collins is away, lets the cat out of the bag that Minister is not happy with the report. What an understatement as time would tell. She is not only unhappy with the report but is setting up it's author for a knife in the back - a Crown Minister you ask. Why yes, one who happens to also have some small experience in the Law reaching the giddy heights of being President of a Law Society Branch where ethics and propriety of practicing Lawyers can be examined.
The 'watchdog' of ethics displaying none herself but instead taking advice from the party criticized in the report and leaving out the applicant. Open Justice and due process? Not by a long way, a dictatorship or practiced communism at best that saw a secret trial where even the defendant wasn't notified.
As Collins was found out and began to splutter out excuses were included that David might not like parts of the report. Really? She was acting in David's interests to exclude him from watching being struck with a hatchet from behind by the Minister. What wouldn't be to like in a report that found him innocent. Collins has never explained that because she can't. Her every move has been treacherous to the man commissioned to investigate the application and to the applicant himself. This wasn't a neutral Minister at work, this was the destruction of Collin's reputation as a Minister of the Crown, bringing with it a blight upon the Prime Minister and the Government itself. On being told that 74 per cent of NZers supported compensation she scoffed, blaming first the pollsters then secondly saying that NZers would be unhappy if she paid out. Revealing again the politics of her position and her misunderstanding that it wasn't a lottery over which she was watching but due process in respect of the Law of this Country.
We will absorb over time that Collins decision making has far reaching implications for freedom within NZ, and access to Justice. In one quick blow Collins has shown that the sanctity of the Law doesn't exist in her world vision despite being a Lawyer herself and one who observed the conduct or misconduct of other Lawyers. She broke every rule of her profession, but as a politician she broke every freedom of every NZer. In a country where a prison inmate can challenge a smoking ban in prisons and win we have a Minister happy to turn away from false imprisonment and behead her own messengers whose news she does not like.
Is she in fact a 'hangbainer?' Yes, by her own efforts at denying him natural justice and fairness as accorded her role of holding a Ministerial warrant.
By her actions, it appears that she is wanting a 'guilty' finding and to avoid paying out, and is, as you put it, a 'hang-bainer'.
ReplyDeleteBut to take a step back and look at this...This is not Judith Collins' decision, it is Cabinet's. There are many people who would be deeply opposed to compensation being paid to David Bain, not because they care one way or the other about the justice of it all, but because they care about what it says that so many could have got it so wrong for so long. They are worrying about who is in the firing line. Ministers of Police; ex Ministers of Police; Current and ex Ministers of Justice; Crown Law and solicitor generals and ex solicitor-generals; the courts; Ministry staff and people like Tom Thorpe commissioned to write reports; Police at senior levels right down to junior plods: all of these have been wrong. Whether wrong because of 'ineptitude', deliberate wrongdoing, or what Binnie J called 'tunnel vision' doesn't matter to them at this point, all they are seeing is the unacceptable enormity of having been so wrong for so long.
So Ms Collins will be up against it - all these people will be fighting to have Binnie's report thrown out. The 'advice' to Collins from Crown Law and the Police undeniably shows that, and Fisher really just parrots them.
What would be really good for this country and our justice system would be to have an INDEPENDENT review done, and identify exactly what went wrong at which stages, and put checks in place to ensure it can't happen again.
Tunnel vision is at the heart of this. Weir says that it was the lack of blood on Robin, in a crime scene where blood was everywhere, that made them look at David. From that point on there was tunnel vision. Butthere was, at the beginning, a fundamental error of logic. Robin was not covered in blood, true, but *neither was David*. The detectives should have asked themselves why, for both of them. Had they done that - a basic elimination - then none of this would have happened. The footprints that obviously belonged to Robin would have been recognised as showing that although Robin had little blood on him when found, *he had changed his socks*. The Privy council saw that instantly.
Some basic training for detectives in proper elimination and avoiding confirmation bias; some awareness training for the police and judiciary on noble cause corruption and tunnel vision, and some independent oversight or watchdog... it's not that hard.
To David Bain and Joe Karam: A Happy New year and hoping the light at the end of the tunnel now is this time NOT just another train coming.
To the officials involved in this: For Justice's sake, have some balls and allow yourselves a little humility and admit you got it wrong. What's done is done, now you could put it right!
To the Cabinet and Ministers: Try to remember a time when you believed in truth and justice and fairness. For some of you it is likely that you entered politics with a genuine wish to do some good for the country. Now is your chance. Be brave, be noble, be good. Be remembered for doing the *right* thing, not with cynicism for covering up and being corrupt.
And Nostalgia, a Happy New Year to you too.
Thanks and the same to you.
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ReplyDeleteA general question from the Bain polls, Is the person referred to on you site as Stockdale and the twit that posts on DPFs blogs as 'Muggins' one in the same, I have a very strong feeling they are, and based on the strength of his arguments then perhaps he should audition with 'bono' on the South Park Worlds biggest crap episode?
Is my line of thinking correct? thoughts
Couldn't be anybody else.
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