Good piece this morning on The Nation that focused on NZs ridiculous level of innocent Kiwis being thrown into prison. It was very focused on the joke that is the check and balance that is supposed to be built into our legal process and not the cultural reasons why there is no demand from NZers for a Justice system that only imprisons the guilty.
NZers are more focused on punishing people rather than convicting the guilty. We are a tiny minded and bitter volk who are easily led by a mainstream media who use crime porn to boost ratings and the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind worship Police authority like a masochist worships a sadist.
The Kiwi mentality is that if the Police believe someone is guilty, then they are guilty. It annoys Kiwis that they have to think beyond that.
When you have a culture who are so small minded, concepts like guilt and innocence are an annoyance that delays watching Rugby, drinking beer and starting the barbie.
At no point during the show did The Nation reflect on the media’s role in hypoing up crime stories.
No surprises there.
Can you possibly explain for instance why the conviction rate for sexual violence offences is so low (about 13% of reported offences) if Kiwi’s simply believe the police?
And the amount of prosecutions taken to court is but the tip of the iceberg of the actual amount of offences committed anyway and this is in no small way because the justice system so badly fails sexual assault victims.
Or why so few victims of burglaries, car thefts, child abuse or domestic violence ever get any justice?
I mean if Kiwi’s jut believed the police seemingly without question surely there would be an awful lot more people jailed or convicted.
Victims are who matter but not in this horribly underfunded justice system.
What I found irritating on The Nation, that was the mention of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy that the Governor General can offer to those feeling wrongly convicted.
And it disturbed me, how Lisa Owen and Patrick Gower appeared to simply accept that this is available and used to assist wrongfully convicted persons.
Any person who knows the system, she and he will know that the Governor General will usually only act on the advice of a Minister. So what “right” is there for wrongfully accused and convicted, unless they have other means to already present sufficient evidence supporting their case, when the Minister will usually simply uphold what his department will already have assessed and based a prosecution on?
Would a Minister go ahead and challenge evidence government officials presented in a prosecution? Would a Minister challenge a judge’s or a jury’s decision if there may simply be no compelling evidence to the contrary, that the accused and convicted can show? Would a Minister advise the Governor General to offer “mercy” simply out of considerations based on speculation and mere possibilities?
I doubt it, and people out there better apply a sound degree of scepticism to what remedies a wrongfully convicted person may have. The government seems reluctant to create any new institution that may reconsider cases put before them, as they seem to think the system is “working”.
There is amply anecdotal evidence I have learned about, where people get charges simply on hearsay kind of evidence, and despite of poor witness accounts. I am sure there are many more that are locked up who did not commit the offences and crimes they were charged with.
The Nation presented a reasonably good story, but the conclusions made at the end seemed rather naive and based on poor information on the actual way the system works.
But the ones like Paddy and Lisa, they seem to believe certain officials and persons in high places more often than they don’t.
A refresher course in investigative journalism may not be inappropriate to recommend here.
This is the official version of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy:
https://gg.govt.nz/role/royalprerogative.htm
It confirms what I commented above.
“Mercy”, that sounds like BS anyway, as it implies the person is wrong, and due to some forgiving and compassion he or she are given a second chance.
And it requires new information to become available, as otherwise they will not review a case anyway.
This is another aspect that the program on The Nation failed to talk about, the difficulty to get legal aid, the fact it often barely covers a lawyer’s costs, and the reality that fewer and fewer lawyers are prepared to take up cases paid for by meagre legal aid:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/311900/fewer-lawyers-willing-to-do-legal-aid
Justice is a privilege of the better off, the Nats made sure of this a few years ago, when they tightened the eligibility for legal aid, and put in caps on what can be paid for a case.
https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/lawtalk/lawtalk-archives/issue-868/legal-aid-and-access-to-justice
And those dealing with perhaps less serious matters, that also have to do with government departments, try the hopelessly over-burdened and under financed Office of the Ombudsmen, you may in some cases have to wait over three years to get a final decision of sorts, mostly not offering any effective resolution at all for a complainant.
The system is a sick joke, and it has been designed to be like that, there is no doubt about it.
And the Teina Poura case was only addressed, because he had a few individuals who took up the matter from the outside and worked endlessly to expose the failings of the system in his case. How many wrongly convicted and locked away individuals are so lucky to have some dedicated supporters work on the outside of prison for them?
No wonder we still have gangs, no wonder we still have people go through the revolving doors of court houses and prisons, when there is no sense of justice, no trust, the affected will simply not believe the BS they are served.
‘the hopelessly over-burdened and under financed Office of the Ombudsmen, you may in some cases have to wait over three years to get a final decision of sorts, mostly not offering any effective resolution at all for a complainant.’
The system is working exactly as intended, then, with no accountability and no effective mechanisms for holding the criminals who inhabit the halls of power to account.
Yep, you got it!
Brainwashing its called XRAY
MSM is engaged in societal brainwashing as Hitler’s Goebbels would have wished available to him so easily as it is today.
We are having our brains rearranged as they use subtle messages to the sleepy hobbit’s.
I don’t even watch the rubbish.
Anyone else hear Paddy the ” ego maniac ” dismiss Helen Kelly on the show this morning when he said that he would vote for her husband as NZlander of the year instead of Helen. What a show of disrespect to Helen from that idiot of an immature pathetic journo. Gower is no asset to NZ and should be replaced with someone wit far h more intellect and integrity.
The Nation ( and Q & A ) – have gone so downhill in quality and sane commentary. It is so sad that we have become so much like the states with regard to the media being nothing but a lying propaganda machine feeding tripe to the people and keeping them in the dark.
Gower is an idiot and bum kisser anyway so don’t worry about him
if the minister is Judith Collins innocent doesn’t exist compensation is woefully inadequate and an insult
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