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 […]
Entries Tagged as 'Jurisprudence'
Published – Three Strikes: Proportion and Protection
September 22nd, 2009 2 Comments
Tags: Public Policy · Publication · Punishment · Three Strikes Bill
A Review of Last Night’s Boscawen, McCoskrie, Evans, Baldock Meeting UPDATED
September 8th, 2009 46 Comments
Last night’s meeting with John Boscawen, Bob McCoskrie, Jim Evans and Larry Baldock on amending s59 of the Crimes Act to decriminalise the use of reasonable force for the purposes of parental correction was encouraging. The main themes I came away with from each speaker were: John Boscawen – ACT Party MP John Boscawen has […]
Tags: Bob McCoskrie · Fitzgerald v Muldoon · Jim Evans · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking
Monday Night: John Boscawen, Bob McCoskrie and Jim Evans on Amending s59
September 4th, 2009 5 Comments
Fresh from Facebook’s “5000 Demanding Anti Smacking Law Change” group is this invitation: ACT MP John Boscawen is holding a series of public debates on the smacking referendum result and how his bill to amend S59 will bring the legislation into line with public opinion. John Boscawen will be holding the first debate in Phil […]
Tags: ACT Party · Bob McCoskrie · Events · Jim Evans · John Boscawen · Parental Freedom · Phil Goff · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
AUSA: ‘FREE’ Candy for your Vote
August 26th, 2009 7 Comments
Following on from More Evidence of Student Association Delusions of Grandeur, where I shared Auckland University Students Assocation’s (AUSA) unfathomable intentions to incorporate the UN Declaration of Human Rights into their constitution, a fellow student and reader of this blog, brought my attention to today’s email to all University of Auckland students which he described […]
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

A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.





Christchurch Event: John Boscawen, David Garrett, Larry Baldock on s59
September 16th, 2009 4 Comments
Recently I attended a public meeting in support of John Boscawen’s Bill to restore the right of parents to use reasonable force for the purposes of correction in the course of parenting removed by the current s59 of the Crimes Act. This Bill will be voted on shortly and for those of us who voted […]
Tags: David Garrett · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking