Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Legal Beagle: A war crimes inquiry; or…, in reply to Sacha,
The police prosecution service’s consistent abdication of action on many political matters in recent decades seems highly material. Wouldn’t trust them to put out a fire in a rubbish bin, let alone conduct an investigation into something authority-challenging like this.
Well, the other possible organisation in New Zealand that I can think of are military police. If you have another suggestion of who could conduct the criminal investigation New Zealand is required to conduct, I would welcome hearing it.
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Legal Beagle: A war crimes inquiry; or…, in reply to Kevin McCready,
Article 29—Non-applicability of statute of limitations
The crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court shall not be subject to any statute of limitations.I couldn’t find authority on our military police being subject to any statute of limitations. Limitation Act 2010 doesn’t mention police, military or war.
The limitation act deals with civil claims, not criminal matters.
War crimes are not time limited, whether tried at Courts martial or in ordinary courts. However, most other lesser offences (eg failing to follow orders) in the Armed Forces Discipline Act are subject to limitation. See section 20 of that Act.
Mataparae
Thanks! If there are any others, please let me know. I had a quick read through at the end, but the time for publishing was fast approaching, and I’m sure there are bits where I could have done a better editing job.
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Legal Beagle: A war crimes inquiry; or…, in reply to simon g,
I’m certainly not going to substitute my “reckons” for proper legal analysis, but it’s worth considering how a NZ police investigation would actually happen.
...
Perhaps the NZ police would show the same independence and determination as Jon Stephenson. But given their track record on challenging their political overlords, even in the comfort of home, it’s hard to hold out much hope.
I'm not really going to dispute any of this. The point of my piece was manifold, but included the following:
1. Pointing out that there were allegations of war crimes;
2. Pointing out the correct response to an allegation of a crime is a criminal investigation;
3. Noting that when New Zealand becomes aware of allegations of war crimes, it is required to investigate them;
4. Noting what this means a criminal investigation, with a view to prosecuting if appropriate;
5. Noting whom New Zealand entrusts with criminal investigations;I considered expanding on the likely inadequacies of a police investigation, but the post was already long, and the time for relevance was short. And the possible inadequacies of a criminal investigation does not mean we are not required to conduct one.
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Legal Beagle: A war crimes inquiry; or…, in reply to BenWilson,
ETA: I mean the local bobbies investigating war crimes committed abroad by their armed forces. It sounds hopelessly impractical.
Much of the investigation would of course occur in New Zealand. Documents held by the NZDF will be held here, and the intelligence officers and SAS soldiers you would need to interview - many of whom it seems are willing to talk, if Nicky Hager's footnotes are anything to go by - are likely all in New Zealand, could be gotten to New Zealand, or could be interviewed by eg MPs flown to their current postings.
In countries with larger militaries, war crimes investiations would often be matters for Military Police. UK war crimes prosecutions have tended to be at Courts Martial following investigation by the RMP. I will note that the prosecution resulting from the 2011 Helmand Province incident, started after video was found on computer by civilian police.
My guess is that this would be more of a stretch for our Military Police than theirs, but I might be wrong. I'm certainly not envisaging that there would be no involvement for MPs in a Police-led investigation.
In the US Federal Jurisdiction, the principle investigative and prosecutorial agencies are the FBI and the Department of Justice (of course there are a bunch of others too, ATF, etc.). War crimes could certainly be investigated by Military Police/NCIS whatever, but the DOJ does have a Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section which has responsibility for war crimes (often, I suspect, for war crimes by other countries, use of child soldiers, etc.).
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Legal Beagle: A war crimes inquiry; or…, in reply to Katharine Moody,
With respect to your last sentence, Graeme, why “should we not let that happen”? Meaning, why is it a less satisfactory body to conduct the investigation?
Several reasons:
1. This is how it’s supposed to work. Countries that have signed up to war crimes treaties with the intention of meeting their obligations under them.
2. It would be a rejection of what we’re supposed to stand for as a country if we were to refuse to investigate allegations of war crimes when they arise, and the decision of the ICC Prosecutor that they needed to prosecute would be international recognition that we had failed.
3. An ICC investigation would be ongoing and could potentially be destablising for the New Zealand political environment.
4. I also think we owe it to any NZer accused of a war crime to do the investigation ourselves.
And probably some others as well. -
ps In light of Nicky's comments that he thought Police were not the appropriate organisation to investigate war crimes in New Zealand, I sought comment a few days ago from Crown Law as to whether anyone other than the Police or Military Police could do so. The request was acknowledged, but they had not replied by the time I went to print.
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Legal Beagle: New Zealand's most racist law, in reply to Angela Hart,
(2017) Was this act eventually amended or repealed?
No. I remain hopeful an MP will pick up the bill I drafted to amend it, but nothing yet.
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Legal Beagle: New Zealand rockets up the…, in reply to David Hood,
Incidentally, about 8% (depending on how you round it) of the movement in countries from 2015 to 2016 was caused by the inclusion of a new source.
I knew there'd be a bunch of extra things going on in there :-)
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Legal Beagle: New Zealand rockets up the…, in reply to simon g,
And when that opposition party was National, and its leader was Don Brash, they called Helen Clark’s government “corrupt” (not implied it, but explicitly said it). When it was pointed out that NZ was top of the very same world rankings (and it was) they said “oops, our bad” … well no, of course they didn’t, they just said “corrupt” again.
This arose from a very specific set of facts:
1. The Labour Party had spent a bunch of money they were not entitled to spend on Pledge cards and leaflets (this bit adds a little to the concern, but isn’t particularly noteworthy).2. More importantly, the Electoral Commission advised them before the election that the card were election advertising, and that the money spent on them was an election expense.
3. Number 2, above, should have been no surprise to anyone. While there might have been confusion about whether they money was able to be spent on the pledge cards, there should have been no confusion whatsover that the material was election advertising and that its cost was an election expense. This was not a difficult call.
4. Knowing that this spending would count toward their spending limit, and knowing that it may already have put them over their spending limit, Labour decided that the rules oughtn’t to apply to them, and kept spending money on election expenses, knowing that this would mean they spent well in excess of the spending limit we put in place to ensure fair elections.
5. Deliberately spending more money on election expenses than the spending limit is a corrupt practice. It can result in prison, and anyone involved in the decision who was an MP could be convicted as a party to that corrupt practice, and would lose their seat.
6. The Electoral Commission referred this deliberate over-spending to the police. The Police interviewed the Prime Ministers chief of staff who told police that there was a dispute about whether the spending on the pledge card was permitted within Parliamentary rules, and that this meant no-one had deliberately overspent. This was false. Even if the auditor-general had ruled that the spending on the pledge card and leaflet were proper uses of Parliamentary funds, this would have made no difference to whether the spending counted toward the overall spending limit. It clearly did, and there is literally no argument against this.
Having been presented with a government that had deliberately committed a corrupt practice, for the purpose of winning an election, Don Brash and others called the government corrupt. The title was truly earned, and a bunch of people are lucky they didn’t end up in prison, or kicked out of Parliament.
The incompetence of the police, in accepting the legal interpretation of the Electoral Act given by a suspect over that offered by the Electoral Commission, and the short time-frames that then applied for filing prosecutions are the only reasons they got off. -
Legal Beagle: Three Strikes five years…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
So no I’m not excluding that person who committed two armed robberies within three years. Your own numbers say that only 103 people fit into that category.
Yes, you are. I have provided the numbers for:
offending that would have been a second strike from Jun '05 - Jun '10;
offending that was a second strike from Jun '10 - Jun '15.I have not provided the numbers for offending that would have been a second strike from Jun '10 - Jun '15 but was not because what would otherwise have been the first strike would have been between Jun '05 - Jun '10.