I am currently undertaking my second-to-last paper in pursuit of my Bachelor of Law (LLB). Due to a complicated bunch of factors involving the potential staleness of my papers, if I do not apply to the New Zealand Council of Legal Education for a completion certificate with an LLB and a Professional Legal Studies certificate [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Due Process'
Can State Appropriation of Minerals in Privately Held Land be Justified? Resources Needed
January 20th, 2010 18 Comments
Tags: Jurisprudence · Law Studies · Minerals · Mining Law · Property Rights · Sub-Soil Land Rights
Grr: On Naming Names the Court has Suppressed
January 11th, 2010 4 Comments
Just because I am a blogger, I’m friends with Cameron Slater a.k.a. Whale Oil, I’ve gone on the record as supporting some of Cameron Slater’s concern with the current practice of name suppression orders for celebrities and I’m legally connected does NOT mean that I automatically always know who the beneficiary of every celebrity name [...]
Tags: Name Suppression · Whale Oil
Name Suppression and the Balancing of Rights and Freedoms
December 22nd, 2009 4 Comments
God, via the consent of the governed, gives authority to the state to administer justice against those who violate the rights and freedoms of others. Given this, it is important that the citizens can see that justice is being done. My fellow blogger WhaleOil’s very public battle with New Zealand’s name suppression laws and the [...]
Tags: Due Process · Name Suppression · Rights and Freedoms · Thomas J · Whale Oil
Published – Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection
September 22nd, 2009 2 Comments
The editor of the New Zealand Law Students Association (NZLSA) publication LEX has just advised me that she has published my article “Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection.” In it I argue that the objections to the The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill (a.k.a the “Three Strikes Bill”) on the basis that it affronts the proportionality [...]
Tags: Public Policy · Publication · Punishment · Three Strikes Bill
Jim Evans Decisively Smacks John Roughan
August 6th, 2009 11 Comments
On Saturday the NZ Herald’s John Roughan demonstrated why journalists should not engage in legal interpretation in his widely criticised piece on the smacking referendum, “Sinister undertones to referendum instigator.” At the time I struggled to ascertain whether Roughan was being deliberately deceptive or he just didn’t get it. He essentially quoted the non-controversial, much [...]
Tags: Jim Evans · John Roughan · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
In Defence of the Partial Defence of Provocation
July 23rd, 2009 16 Comments
The case we have all watched in horror playing out in the news is over. Clayton Weatherston has been found guilty of murdering Sophie Elliot and his attempt at the partial defence of provocation was rightly shown the contempt it deserved by the court. At MandM we maintained our standard policy of refusing to comment [...]
Tags: Clayton Weatherston · Defences · Due Process · Provocation
Fisking Margaret Mayman: The Flawed Moral Theology on the Smacking Referendum
July 7th, 2009 7 Comments
In “A Christian Perspective on the Child Discipline Referendum,” Rev Dr Margaret Mayman presents a theological justification for retaining the amended section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which has criminalised force used against a child for the purposes of parental correction. Mayman began by offering three standard arguments for repealing the old section 59, [...]
Tags: Crimes Act · David Benatar · Hermeneutics · Margaret Mayman · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Theology
The Foreshore and Seabed Repeal: The Inconvenience of Due Process
July 2nd, 2009 14 Comments
That the state is not above the law but also subject to it is surely one of the foundational concepts of any just and free society. This notion has found its place in the writings of many influential philosophers, jurists and theologians, it can be found in the constitutions and bills of rights of most [...]
Tags: Foreshore and Seabed · Human Rights · Jurisprudence · Justice · Liberty · Māori Land · Ngāti Apa
No Defences Permitted for the Accused
June 19th, 2009 36 Comments
In, The referendum campaign is underway, No Right Turn’s Idiot/Savant gives an excellent example of an argument we see coming up a lot in the debate around the upcoming referendum on smacking. In addition to trotting out the standard ad hominem, that everyone who supports the reinstatement of the old section 59 of the Crimes [...]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Crimes Act · Defences · Idiot/Savant · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Sue Bradford · William Blackstone
Tune in to Marae Tomorrow
February 5th, 2010 9 Comments
Yesterday Matt and I participated in filming a debate on the Treaty of Waitangi. The moot was “That the Treaty of Waitangi is holding NZ back.” There were four panelists, Stephen Franks, Tim Wikiriwhi, Matthew Hooten and Hana O’Regan and an active audience, of which Matt and I were asked to be members of to [...]
Tags: Hana O'Regan · John Minto · Marae · Matthew Hooten · Shane Taurima · Stephen Franks · Tim Wikiriwhi · Treaty of Waitangi · TV One · TVNZ