The importance of the Privy council has once more cast shadows of doubt on the ability of NZ to question the results of our own laws.
Police and Crown Prosecutors built their careers on setting Teina Pora up, then those same Police and Crown Prosecutors moved up the ranks of power. Left for them to decide, Pora would have rotted away forever, external legal minds with no fear or favour have freed him.
Deep questions about NZs so called justice system must now be asked. How many innocent men and women have been set up by the NZ Police and now languish in jail? No sane democracy would continue without now demanding action on this front. We can not allow our crime headline generated hatred towards prisoners blind us to the fact the system can fail.
Not one innocent NZer should be allowed to rot in prison, the time is now to investigate if any are.
Finally. A just result. Too often just and justice are kept apart in our legal system.
I celebrate the decision for Teina Pora, and hope that the compensation for his considerable losses is dealt with speedily and justly.
Yes Molly, I agree totally.
But the way it is at the moment, some Politicians still believe they are Judge and Jury and know better than the Privy Council.
They are totally out of order..
True that.
And yet this evening Amy Adams says this decision illustrates how sound our (NZ’s) jucicial appeal processes are and how well they work.
ffs!
Amy Adams says this decision illustrates how sound our (NZ’s) jucicial appeal processes are and how well they work.
Rubbish from Amy Adams!
Double talk is what they deal in.
NatZ speak out of both ends at once right?
Good article Martyn.
How many innocent men and women have been set up by the NZ Police and now languish in jail?
Indeed Martyn, the name Scott Watson springs to mind.
Peter Ellis springs to my mind first.
Scott Watson is the next case they need to review, ASAP
That’s the problem with many of these cause celebre, people jump on the bandwagon without knowing the facts.
He’s guilty, a court found him guilty and given his criminal history how many potential victims have been saved?
Jorge1. Do you know anything at all about the case? I thought not. Here’s a suggestion. Get yourself informed before you burst into print and reveal the depths of your ignorance.
Jorge1 – that has to be one of the most ill-informed comments I’ve read for at last 24 hours…
Did you actually think it through? Or just jerk a knee and automatic-writing took over?!
Do you honestly know so little about the case that you could ignore everything leading up to the Privy Council’s decision?!
Amy Adams must live on planet key!
A positive outcome well overdue!
Hopefully, Teina won’t have a battle on his hands to compensate for the years he has lost, languishing for 22 years in prison. He is worthy of a decent compensation payout if anyone is.
Enjoy your new life Teina. Take good care.
Still no justice either for Peter Ellis – he hasn’t even had the benefit of re-trial – and served most of his term because he refused to say he was guilty!
Totally agree.
I think the problem lies in the fact that the NZ rich can enjoy a greater level of ‘ justice ‘ , in all the words permutations, than the NZ poor . I think that’s called ‘corruption’ ?
We Nz’ers clearly need a robust public-access legal system running in parallel with the private system .
So , who was it that dealt a blow most recently to ‘ legal aid ‘ ?
It’s to that traitor to whom we need to take our pitch forks , feathers and tar to .
The Privy Council did not find fault with how the Police dealt with Teina Pora during his arrest or interrogation. They certainly should have been more circumspect with accepting his confession but that does not mean they set him up.
Let me translate that, Gosman, as articulating it clearly appears to stick in your craw.
Police were not at fault in arrest and interviewing but failed in their duty to objectively weigh the material they collected.
They were not alone in this, Crown prosecution were complicit. And, as is so often the case, the state prosecuting apparatus adhered to, and continue to adhere to, both the police and their own initial flawed conclusions, come hell or high water.
It is amazing, in these cases; Thomas, Ellis, Gwaze, Bain, Pora, etc ; how quickly and absolutely these two systems close ranks in order to preserve their own delusion of infallibility.
They are blind to the fact that they end up damaging the justice system’s credibility rather than preserving it.
should have been more circumspect – snort.
what about the witnesses who were paid by the police?
The Privy Council were not charged with finding fault by the Police, that is not their job. They did find insufficient evidence for the guilty verdict.
The police knew this, and went ahead with the prosecution – and refused to back down when physical evidence indicating another suspect was confirmed.
They do deserve censure for this.
NZ is no longer a “sane democracy”. That’s why there will be many more Teina Pora’s rotting their lives away in our prisons for years to come.
From NoRightTurn ……..
” When that case was overturned on appeal after Malcolm Rewa was convicted, they bribed witnesses to secure a conviction at retrial. Since then, they’ve steadfastly refused to admit that they did anything wrong, or that Pora may not have been the man they’re after. In the process, not only have they ruined an innocent man’s life – they’ve also let a guilty one go free. To be clear, the only reason Malcolm Rewa has not been convicted of Susan Burdett’s murder is because the police didn’t do their fucking job properly in 1993, fixated on Pora as an easy way of clearing the case off their books, and in the process created reasonable doubt for the actual criminal”
http://norightturn.blogspot.co.nz/2015/03/we-need-to-talk-about-our-police.html
I kind of get the feeling that with Teina Pora there was a certain element of expediency in his case. It is like there was an imperative for a result rather than the truth. I fear that this way of dealing with things may not just apply to Pora. How did that culture emerge? All I can think of is that the truth could prove to be more expensive to find than just a result for its own sake. That is just the impression I get, anyway.
An unrelated case but I believe it pertains to the injustice of our “justice” system:
Apparent light sentence leaves victim angry
These two teens from St John’s College beat a man into a coma in an unprovoked attack.
The judge declined to send one of them to prison saying the teen was a “talented sportsman”.
What exactly does this guys sports ability have to do with him attacking another man?
Just another instance where if you’re either rich or play sports then you don’t need to face the consequences of your actions like the rest of us.
Maybe it is about the money? So much for justice then.
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