Court decision on 501 deportee set to force rethink by Parliament
The High Court has delivered a bombshell decision on a 501 former drug dealer deported from Australia, who has successfully challenged the Government’s authority to impose special conditions upon his return to New Zealand.
It is a decision that will force Parliament to clarify the law and/or appeal against the decision because it could have implications for many of the other 501 former prisoners.
Judge Cheryl Gwyn has declared that such special conditions, including residing at a particular address, supplying fingerprints and DNA, and attending a rehabilitative assessment or treatment programme, amounted to a penalty beyond what he had served in Australia and therefore double jeopardy – contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.
Does this really surprise anyone?
Our demands on 501s never felt like they would stand up in any court and the only surprise I have is that it’s taken this long to point out.
Consider the back story here.
Australia, because they are a racist society founded by convicts, operate a deeply problematic policy against Kiwis that see our citizens treated with contempt if they break the Australian ‘good character’ laws.
So Kiwis who commit an offence in Australia are not only punished for that offence in prison, then as an extra penalty they are threatened with rendition to a Pacific prison torture camp or a one way flight to NZ.
Most choose the one way ticket to NZ.
Now you can argue that seeing as the vast majority of these 501s left NZ as children and have lived their entire lives in Australia, that they are in fact a product of Australian culture.
They didn’t leave NZ as criminals, they became criminals because of Australian society, so as such, they are Australia’s broken harvest and should remain there!
But no, it’s far more electorally pleasing to Australian’s to dump them here.
So the 501 not only serves their full sentence, they then get renditioned to NZ (under threat of pacific torture camp) and on return to NZ, (a country most have no connection to whatsoever), they have to hand their DNA to NZ cops, live in a specific place and agree to a whole bunch of programs, which of course is crazy bullshit because they’ve already served their sentence in Australia and as such owe nothing to the NZ justice system because they’ve committed a crime here!
I’m not sure how the hell this was ever going to stand up to scrutiny.
The problem of course is that these 501s are incredibly dangerous and have sparked a turf war with the domestic gangs that we are seeing play out in real time now.
We need to provide wrap around services that are well funded which help those 501s who want to reform while ensuring we have the details of those who don’t want to change or engage with those rehabilitation services.
This blancmange of 501 demands we came up with on the fly was never going to pass muster.
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Wait a minute! You mean NOW the Bill of Rights is important in the eyes of the judiciary?? WTAF.
One day we will have a description of what the precursor “wrap around services” actually entails.
The go to phrase for any problem solver trying to get social discourse, under some semblance of rectification is to offer “wrap around services”.
What are these “wrap around services” and is the state at all prepared to offer a plan, cost, staff and legislation so as it has teeth to function?
Unfortunate the decision is correct in law but will be seen by the voting public as but one further sop to the hand wringing, soft on crime, state (Labour in this case) apparatus.
More money on criminals, less money for victims. Not a good election vote winner.
501 when returned to new Zealand should be interred (like refugees) and like refugees, resettled as per that protocol.
Interred? We ditched the death penalty years ago!
fat finger mistake; should be interned. Though this term usually means during war time. (eg Japanese USA citizens during WW2)
Can we call the current crime wave a war?
No. Too provocative. There is no army. Lone actors with accomplices only.
“but will be seen by the voting public as but one further sop to the hand wringing, soft on crime, state (Labour in this case) apparatus.”
As the law was brought in, in 2015 it is therefore National who was soft on crime, who would have thought with all their hard stance hand wringing!
The same can be said of ram raid crimes.
“As for what happens next, this is a big legal problem for the government, and they’ll likely respond to it in the way they have responded to previous big legal problems: with more urgent, all-stages legislation to patch their earlier urgent, all-stages legislation, overturn the judgement, and get them off the hook”
( https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2022/12/a-judicial-earthquake.html )
Like it or not, a law was passed by our Parliament, allowing this specific information to the gathered in order to protect NZ citizens from these men. However, Justice Cheryl Gwyn in the Wellington High Court, clearly an activist judge, thinks she has the right to make law rather than just apply it. She needs to be recalled.
A more devious country would simply ask their Aussie mates in their police force to hand over the information as these thugs were deported. It need not have even been made public.
Its funny how the 501’s are first to complain about having their rights violated – but never mention the rights of the dairy owner to maintain possession of his fingers.
One thing at a time or we get confused jim. You’re off the subject to a related one.
I agree Jim B!
Let’s be honest, this problem is near on impossible to fix. Damaged people who frequently make bad to very bad choices coming to a country that doesn’t want them nor they us, in which they may or may not have support or willing support, that cannot house good law abiding citizens and somehow, we can provide these mythical “wrap around services”? They don’t exist and going by all parties in parliament, never will.
The fact is if that miracle can be provided of universal cheap reasonable accommodation with reasonable paid employment and access to appropriate health services then the question is, why not the same for all the other good people needing exactly the same? New Zealand’s way of life needs a ground up rebuild!
The whole situation is a bastard of a mess that can barely be managed as is.
Xray, I do agree there. We have much work to be done.
I was surprised to learn the restrictions on returning 501s, I wasn’t aware of the body fluids thing at all and it does smack of unethical to me personally (they had served there sentences already). But I also appreciate the logic of doing so. Though surely that info was available from Ausy cops already? I think it’s worth noting some of these 501s may not have rap sheets – I think the law is about “undesirable character”, which can be pretty vague and subjective (eg motor cycle enthusiasts?).
This particular 501 was an immigrant to NZ at the age of 5.
Once his parents obtained citzenship, and that flowed to the children, this 501 was aged 11.
Once citizenship was obtained, the previous immigrants then scarpered off to Australia.
So no, not actually a NZ citizen. Solely here for the backdoor entry to Australia. If anything, Australia should have deported the 501 back to their original country of birth.
This government has never cared about the Bill of Rights (1990), so I’m amazed it’s even come up in court.
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM224792.html
With blatant breaches of Articles 10, 11, 13, 14, and 18, during and after the pandemic, this government is surely a law unto its own at this point!
Absolutely, it is also likely breaching aspects of the Bill of Rights with some of its identarian interventions. So whilst I tend to agree its a bit of an overeach, the truth is the government does whatever it wants. We just delude ourselves that they are trying to play by the rules.
The law seems to take the approach of ‘you are bad and we expect you to carry on being bad’. The 501s normally have no family or friends in Aotearoa, except maybe for other 501s. Maybe the law should take a less punitive approach by, whilst still requiring details to be taken, provide assistance similar to that provided to refugees for integration into Aotearoa.
With the high 501 offending rate the current law and processes are obviously not working.
Comments are closed.