Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: Hidden in plain sight

Christopher Wingate

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:28:25 +1300

" It is human nature for people to make decisions which are rooted in self-interest. They do not need to collude to promote interests they share." – Vince Siemer

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 20:06:54 +1300

Calm down. "The Encyclopedia of public choice", Volume 2, by Charles Kershaw Rowley, Friedrich Schneider- is just one of many

ScottY

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:50:04 +1300

Each year more and more of the red tape destroys macro and micro economic engines. The facts are that more lawyers equals lower growth, lower GNP.

You got a citation for that? Or are you just having a rant because someone screwed you over and now you think it’s a…

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:32:13 +1300

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Adam Smith

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:18:12 +1300

Who said anything about how you spend- it's how the banks borrow and loan- it's about income vs debt ratios', about managing asset bubbles. Bollard suggests his loan-to-value restrictions will dampen credit bubbles- that ignores the fact values are inflated by motivated self interest parties. He also said the Reserve…

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:03:20 +1300

Each year more and more of the red tape destroys macro and micro economic engines. The facts are that more lawyers equals lower growth, lower GNP.

As for the legal club- members don't need to be just friends, they just need to be attracted to the same aims, monopoly power…

Matthew Poole

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:01:37 +1300

Regulatory control is set by the government who are advised by the lawyers who are employed by the bankers

Yeah yeah, and they're all in it with the Illuminati.
I don't want the government to regulate what I can spend my money on, or regulate what banks can lend me…

ScottY

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:57:10 +1300

The legal club have ridden NZ like a mule. Lawyers need to start asking why is New Zealand failing, now the 3rd most indebted nation is the OECD.

What a load of tosh. What the hell is this "legal club" you refer to? Get more than two lawyers together and…

Kumara Republic

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:55:34 +1300

Our debt is largely private, not public, Shon Key's conflations of the two notwithstanding.

And financial illiteracy is being willfully exploited to justify cutting and running. The whole 'international financial hub' thing is little more than an embellished John Frum prayer. The only antidote, it seems, to crass materialism without…

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:54:04 +1300

Regulatory control is set by the government who are advised by the lawyers who are employed by the bankers

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:52:07 +1300

I introduced a very wealthy Tauranga (Papamoa) property developer to a well know Rotorua barrister I will call Murray. Mr X from Papamoa had issues with a minority shareholder over a shopping centre.

My wife and I bumped into Murray one day, maybe 2 years later, and I asked-
"How…

Matthew Poole

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:39:45 +1300

Lawyers need to start asking why is New Zealand failing, now the 3rd most indebted nation is the OECD.

Probably because we borrow like mad to buy houses, cars, and other domestic goods and services. Lawyers have SFA to do with it, and neither does the Government. Our debt is…

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:36:54 +1300

Australian lawyers lashed over costs, delays

THE nation's top judge has launched an attack on cost and delay in the legal system, saying "intolerable" delays are now accepted in criminal cases and that expense is "the greatest blot" on the civil litigation landscape. High Court Chief Justice Murray Gleeson also…

Christopher Wingate

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:31:51 +1300

Having wasted many millions of dollars in the NZ legal system I am not surprised the politicians are taking a shot. The legal club have ridden NZ like a mule. Lawyers need to start asking why is New Zealand failing, now the 3rd most indebted nation is the OECD.

I…

sean14

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 08:07:52 +1300

Thanks Hayden.

Hayden Wilson

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 16:50:39 +1300

Sean, it is on the order paper, but a looooong way down

sean14

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 11:11:37 +1300

Hi Graeme

On a somewhat related matter, do you know what the status of the Search and Surveillance bill is?

Cheers, Sean.

Bob Dobelina

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 20:48:46 +1300

Thanks for that review. The word from the judges is indeed huge shit. Don't forget too that they despise the Three Strikes Act and grimace each time they have to read its heavy handed warning.

let's not forget that one definition of the defence lawyers is "people paid to lie…

Hayden Wilson

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:51:07 +1300

andrew r – I did say I might be alone in thinking that written briefs might be a good thing. For my part I don't necessarily accept that they fly in the face of innocent until proven guilty – sure you would need some safegurads around how it would work…

andrew r

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:10:00 +1300

Ha, good point Ben . Too tired , its Friday after all .

Graeme Edgeler

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:51:19 +1300

Graeme, can you comment on what appear to be hugely excessive delays in the Courts. Power is promoting these changes to speed things up.

A bunch of different reasons:

There number of people charged has increased, and sentences have increased (for some offending quite markedly);

The number of people charged…

BenWilson

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 10:43:56 +1300

I practise regularly at the defence bar …. and i can tell you its becoming more and more of a chore for various reasons . Too many to go into here

Aw, that's a teaser. C'mon, give us the main ones!

Phil Lyth

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:17:25 +1300

Graeme, can you comment on what appear to be hugely excessive delays in the Courts. Power is promoting these changes to speed things up. But is it just a case of an administrative shambles?

Anyone can track the lack of progress of cases. For example, the former ACC manager who…

Phil Lyth

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:10:32 +1300

That there was a jury in the manslaughter(?) charge against the police officer against whom a private prosecution was brought for the death of Stephen Wallace probably allayed the anger of the family more than a judge-directed acquittal ever could.

Exactly. The whanau may not have liked the verdict, but…

andin

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:03:08 +1300

Just another knock to the defence bar implying that it is we who ‘clog the system’
If the Prosecution/Crown did not so often over charge ….. that would speed things up considerably and invite more guilty pleas. If we were allowed to test veracity of key prosecution witness’s in pretrial…

Raymond A Francis

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:42:31 +1300

How often did depositions result in a "no case to answer"?
Not very often in my experience, are there any figures on this point?

It has always seemed to me that defence lawyers like juries because they can be swayed or more truthfully bamboozled; let's not forget that one definition…

Graeme Edgeler

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:08:51 +1300

Is there any evidence that a jury is more “just” than a judge.

Some people would suggest that the Waihopai case is a good example. Others not so much. Others might include some of the battered women cases where there was an acquittal on a defence like provocation where it…

Matthew Reid

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:26:17 +1300

There is one offence with a maximum of only two years, that will still need to be heard by a jury (and a High Court jury at that) – infanticide.

That seems logical, as a form of homicide, that infanticide should be treated seriously, have a jury trial in the…

andrew r

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:22:09 +1300

“that would be interesting (but anathema to the criminal bar) would be a requirement for the defence to exchange briefs of evidence in advance, together with a restriction preventing them being used by the prosecution unless and until the evidence had been called… but I may well be alone in…

BenWilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:16:52 +1300

Your analysis assumes that there is a common purpose across the defendants – there might be an aggregate advantage, but not one that is predictable for any identifiable one.

Well, they do all want to be found innocent, or even better, have the charges dropped. So there is a common…

Hayden Wilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:01:36 +1300

Ben –
You are absolutely right – the reason they don't turn their minds to it is because they don't have to and that they have other things to do.

Also, the costs involved are not just the cost on the prosecutor, there is also the (not insignificant) waste of…

Tom Semmens

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:53:31 +1300

"I appreciate that some defendants and counsel are guilty of abusing the system but, on balance, the judiciary is not persuaded that this provides good reason for the departure from basic principle, which is involved in any requirement for advance disclosure of an intended defence," she said in her submission.…

Bart Janssen

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:34:55 +1300

Is there any evidence that a jury is more "just" than a judge. I guess I'm not convinced enough that juries are "better", to be concerned that there will be less option for a jury.

Rob Stowell

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:13:21 +1300

3410- I don't get your point :)

3410

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:01:52 +1300

Sacha

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:15:06 +1300

If I was a defendant and had to provide my defence to the prosecution wouldn't that mean that big money could be spent by the prosecution to undermine my defence before it was even my turn to defend in the courtroom?

Yes. Expect to see cuts in prosecution budgets..

Sacha

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:14:22 +1300

Other than that it's a very general strengthening of prosecution power, which I haven't heard any particular case for, other than cost-cutting. Do our prosecutors really need more advantages, considering that they already wield the power and financing of the State?

I'd say your answer lies in ideology

Ian MacKay

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:07:56 +1300

BenWilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:56:11 +1300

It seems to me that a good portion of our criminal bar rarely (probably because of the pressures of resources and time) turn their mind with any degree of focus to cases before the last minute.

Because they didn't have to?

What that often results in is massive additional cost…

Hayden Wilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:40:16 +1300

Having been on both sides of the fence (prosecuting and defence), although admittedly not as often as some, I am pretty relaxed about pre-trial notification of issues. I perhaps wouldn't go as far as the Bill does but certainly a requirement to identify issues that are not disputed, well in…

Steve Barnes

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:23:24 +1300

“It wasn’t me, but if it was it was self-defence” might be inconsistent, but is “I didn’t assault the complainant, and the person who did did so in self-defence), and aren’t they the same?Not at all the same. The similarity ends with the redundancy of the latter part of the…

James Butler

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:40:38 +1300

Does it still count as breaking news if it became public a week ago?

The wheels of justice blog exceedingly slowly...

Graeme Edgeler

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:36:17 +1300

Graham, a few typos/questions:…

Thanks. I’d forced a deadline onto to myself (must publish before Derek at the Herald, so I ended up finishing it at around 3am. I just knew there’d be something like that… if anyone else can find more please let me know.

BenWilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:34:51 +1300

Not being required to "show their working" encourages mistakes, which is a bad thing.

The prosecution has always had to present its case in advance, though, no? You know what charges you will face, and what evidence will be presented.

I'm not saying these changes are good, just that the…

3410

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:08:16 +1300

It is still a bit hard for me to see directly why this is particularly bad, though.

Because the current regime maintains the integrity of the prosecution.

If the prosecution is honest and true, then it won't need advance warning on where its case might have slipped up. Not being…

BenWilson

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:49:28 +1300

Thanks Graeme. I don't know quite what to make of most of it, other than it does in general seem to be heavily in favor of prosecution. The requirement to actually tell the prosecution what your defense is seems quite a massive change, I can see why it's held up…

Paul Rowe

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:53:28 +1300

Graham, a few typos/questions:

In your section The abolition of the distinction between the summary and indictable jurisdiction your first para ends somewhere it doesn't intend to I think.

And on the law society submission you say it certainly was all mine (or even mostly mine) I presume that's 'wasn't…

Graeme Edgeler

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:32:45 +1300

Does it still count as breaking news if it became public a week ago?

Public Address

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 07:32:45 +1300

Discussion from blog post.