GUEST BLOG: Jackie Foster – SOCIAL JUSTICE AOTEAROA POLICING POLICY + JUSTICE POLICY
POLICING POLICY
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To ensure and promote fair and open policing in New Zealand.
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To work with political parties to create a fairer, better, and more transparent policing system in New Zealand.
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Work towards a review of the Independent Police Conduct Authority.
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To ensure that the IPCA is working independently, openly, honestly and transparently.
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To assist people who are in the police system to ensure they are being treated fairly.
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To work with police and create better mental health policy.
JUSTICE POLICY
I find it interesting how a lot of the electioneering we are hearing is on crime/gangs, National forever going on about putting more police on the street but we simply hear nothing about justice, a political issue that could affect all our lives at any time.
Social Justice Aotearoa will advocate for a just and civil society, focusing our advocacy towards supporting and rehabilitating people who come into the justice system, and providing early social interventions that help them avoid violence, conflict, and abuse.
Vision. The law benefits everyone equally and supports all New Zealanders to live their lives safely.
Currently there are several cases that come to mind that are a disgrace both to the police force and the judicial system, where shocking policing has been highlighted damaging many peoples lives.
To achieve equal and open justice in New Zealand we need to have open, honest, and transparent policing including one law for everyone where money or status does not determine the outcome.
Values and Principles
Everyone is entitled to justice, a fair hearing, and to be treated with respect in the justice system.
This goes without saying but currently is not the case, where seemingly if you have money, you can afford a better lawyer, or two, where the average Kiwi just plods along with legal aid and just has to accept whatever the outcome is. This is wrong and must stop and the way to do this is to tidy up the legal aid system, making open justice available to all that need representation and it should not be decided by who has more money than the other.
Both the Green Party and Maori parties have this in their written policies, and I applaud them in doing so but again question where is this conversation from any of the other main parties or even the minor parties.
Everyone should be given a reasonable chance to make up for past wrongs and to reintegrate back into society.
A simple policy that is based on common sense. Everyone makes mistakes in life, some of us bigger ones than others, but everyone deserves a second or even a third chance. Let’s be clear the clean slates act is a good thing but only in relation to certain lower end offending.
The law and judicial independence are fundamental values that should be protected.
Protected in every way and recently in New Zealand we have seen these principles not adhered too and this sort of shocking justice SJA will advocate against always.
Justice should be an open, transparent, and fair process and the right to justice must be protected in all its forms.
We will always say that it should be everyone’s right to have their truth heard and that all truthful evidence should be heard by the court and any jury, and this is a principle that is not currently happening in New Zealand. Again, we are not hearing much about this from politicians and that needs to change.
Priority policy.
Ensure that everyone before the justice system, at any stage of the process, regardless of gender, race, origin, or financial status, is treated equally, accorded due process, and without any limitation on their right to justice.
Advocate against and, if found, stop any abuse of the rule of law happening in Aotearoa New Zealand, regardless of the influence or importance of those responsible.
Jackie Foster, CEO, Social Justice Aotearoa
Our justice system is inherently racist as are those that prosecute and administer it. People do not have equal access to justice be that the perpetrator or the victim. When they said they would include elements of tikanga in the delivery of court systems and the judicial system I found this to be a joke cause English common law and me ona tikanga are not compatible. Some of our judge’s have old fashion discriminative and racist views. And many of our judge’s have benefitted financially from a bloody racist and punitive system. We talk about being fair but people are not treated fairly not in the courts, not in prison, not by parole, not with legal representation, not with sentencing not with access to decent rehab. The entire system needs a compete overhaul.
I like your last sentence.
You’d have have legal consultants who would be hired by those who could afford them. And there’s no way to stop that, because all it requires is people having knowledge of the law, and people paying them money because they have knowledge of the law.
The short answer is….you can’t fix the justice system. You can make a system that’s ‘fair’ in the sense that it’s broken and unfair for everyone (Guilty until proven Innocent!), but that’s kind of going the wrong way.
Innocent until proven guilty is enshrined in the justice system, but not it’s culture. Guilty until proven innocent is way less useful for determining guilt, but it’s more, emotionally satisfying.
Same reason why prisons technically exist to rehabilitate people, but in practice are just elaborate forms of revenge.
Japan’s legal system is a peculiar one, and Death Note the anime (Japanese carton) was probably at least partially written as an allegory for why it’s so horrible, right down to Light’s method of killing people being chillingly similar to the way Japan executes criminals. No warning, no appeal, just one night you wake up to a lethal injection you never saw coming.
Tldr: lawyers get the big bucks for a reason. This stuffs complicated.
Nice blog Jackie
Interesting to see your group SJA seems to be refocusing? Do we get an idea of the path SJA may be taking?
Thanks for this such important stuff, my beef has been what happens to the many police who are involved in putting people in prison who are innocent there are many examples but I have never seen a policeman go to prison for confusing and convincing and tricking someone that they did the crime, their tactics are appalling.
Remember in the end we pay when the payouts are made for those locked up for short or long term. But the cops are never held accountable.
The whole thing does need an overhaul. The IPCA needs to be disbanded frankly they are a waste of space.
I expect by the time the police’s report on how they locked up Alan Hall for 22 years actually happened we will all be over it and no one will care and no one will be held accountable!
This should read:
Lets be honest, the police are overlooking people in possession of cannabis unless THEY ARE BROWN.