“Not in the public interest” is one of those phrases which means essentially nothing.
It’s a cover all or more likely a cover-up on the part of the government, civil service or judiciary for a lack of action on an event that the public is actually very keen to see happen.
Such is the case in the extraordinary decision by the Crown Solicitor to drop charges against Te Wehi Ratana, a 31 year old from Nelson, who was charged with damaging an art installation and obstructing police following an act of vandalism at Te Papa two years ago.
The installation damaged was Te Papa’s Treaty of Waitangi display.
He was due to face trial by jury in just a few weeks.
Trial by jury eh? You know, justice in front of your peers. In public. Where the people can see and hear the evidence and where a panel of the public can decide whether or not the alleged actions took place and whether or not they were a crime.
All in front of an interested public.
But this impending trial was not, according to the Crown Solicitor, in the public interest.
How can she say this? How does she know this?
Did she ask the public?
Of course not. She made a unilateral decision because the trial would become an intensely political event. There was sure to have been evidence presented which would have contested the meaning of the Treaty and whether or not the exhibit correctly portrayed what was meant when it was signed in 1840.
But that evidence should have been irrelevant and a strong judge would have made it inadmissible. The case should have been about two questions.
1. Did Ratana damage the installation?
2. Did he obstruct police trying to apprehend him?
Why Ratana did what he did is essentially unimportant. The charges he faced were not about the reasoning behind the alleged crimes. They were about the alleged crimes themselves.
Then into the rationale behind the Crown Solicitor’s decision is something decidedly worrying.
The Crown in recent weeks had reportedly been presented with “expert evidence” on tikanga from the defendant’s uncle – who just happened to be a former MP, one time leader of the Maori Party and the Auckland flanker who played against the Springboks in 1981, Te Ururoa (Jim) Flavell.
I included the irrelevant line about his rugby career because it’s about as important as tikanga is in this case.
This is a criminal case about vandalism to an art installation at a museum owned by the people of New Zealand. As a person of New Zealand I don’t want Te Papa exhibits damaged.
I don’t think anyone should be allowed to do that and get away with it.
Yet the Crown Solicitor, for reasons based purely on political timidity, has allowed an act of vandalism – for which there is photographic evidence of it in progress – to go unpunished.
It is a blight on our justice system and on the government which oversees the Crown Solicitor’s office.
This case was most definitely in the public interest.
I’m embarrassed to live in such a corrupt country.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
The installation damaged was Te Papa’s Treaty of Waitangi display.
He was due to face trial by jury in just a few weeks.
Trial by jury eh? You know, justice in front of your peers. In public. Where the people can see and hear the evidence and where a panel of the public can decide whether or not the alleged actions took place and whether or not they were a crime.
All in front of an interested public.
But this impending trial was not, according to the Crown Solicitor, in the public interest.
How can she say this? How does she know this?
Did she ask the public?
Of course not. She made a unilateral decision because the trial would become an intensely political event. There was sure to have been evidence presented which would have contested the meaning of the Treaty and whether or not the exhibit correctly portrayed what was meant when it was signed in 1840.
But that evidence should have been irrelevant and a strong judge would have made it inadmissible. The case should have been about two questions.
1. Did Ratana damage the installation?
2. Did he obstruct police trying to apprehend him?
Why Ratana did what he did is essentially unimportant. The charges he faced were not about the reasoning behind the alleged crimes. They were about the alleged crimes themselves.
Then into the rationale behind the Crown Solicitor’s decision is something decidedly worrying.
The Crown in recent weeks had reportedly been presented with “expert evidence” on tikanga from the defendant’s uncle – who just happened to be a former MP, one time leader of the Maori Party and the Auckland flanker who played against the Springboks in 1981, Te Ururoa (Jim) Flavell.
I included the irrelevant line about his rugby career because it’s about as important as tikanga is in this case.
This is a criminal case about vandalism to an art installation at a museum owned by the people of New Zealand. As a person of New Zealand I don’t want Te Papa exhibits damaged.
I don’t think anyone should be allowed to do that and get away with it.
Yet the Crown Solicitor, for reasons based purely on political timidity, has allowed an act of vandalism – for which there is photographic evidence of it in progress – to go unpunished.
It is a blight on our justice system and on the government which oversees the Crown Solicitor’s office.
This case was most definitely in the public interest.
I’m embarrassed to live in such a corrupt country.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
I was actually surprised he was charged in the first place, given the political leanings of our justice system. In a year or so, he will be on the New Year's honours list.
I didn’t pick Peter for being so anti-government. The judiciary cleared acted correctly here. There are real issues affecting us most notably real criminals with real impact and this case just isn’t one of them. Justice must be just that, justice. The judge has done just what you’d expect from what his job title suggests, and it is spot on here.
Of course NZ is a corrupt country, but soft corruption and a chumocracy, which global corruption indexes don't measure.
Perhaps the reasons are different than those proposed. Knowing our judges past behaviour, it is possible the Crown foresees a different outcome. That the presiding judge instructs the jury that the man must be considered a hero under tikanga. Any other result will lead to a mistrial.
Not wanting to have a criminal give hero status, it is better to just drop the charges.
Tikanga is the tribal law that was there before the settlers came in 1840. Under tikanga if you murder someone then " Utu" applies, where you seek revenge by murdering also. It goes against every christian or western concept of what is right and what is wrong. Yet law students are niw being taught about this in university.
What a disgraceful precedent to set. So, now in all contentious things where Maori are involved, is the practice to be 'the turning of a blind eye'. Just like the illegal landing on the Poor Knights and what was too often observed on "Police Ten 7", what is happening to our law and order in that it is only to apply to some?
Una Jagose may be gone, but clearly her misguided legacy lives on. The current Solicitor-General needs to be interrogated and very likely reprimanded on what appears an appalling decision, and the completely 'wrong signal' to send. The interests of the public have not been served - which is what we pay our Crown Law Office supposedly to protect.
And why is our msm all-but silent on this? They were only too eager to publicise the original event.
So we have a Govt Dept/Agency - Crown Law who "decided" that there was insufficient 'something or other' that suggested it was unworthy of a High Court Case in front of a Jury!
Of recent times The People of New Zealand have see -
- the sinking of an expensive Navy Ship, in that hands of a Capt & crew, with potentially no sea experience. The following was a set of Navy Signaling, firstly with Judith Collins, the 'head shed' of the Navy, the releasing of "heavily" redacted report, then crickets.
Even pre Courts-Martial information - 'redacted'. My take " nothing to see here"
- the NZ Rugby Union - and the removal of The Coach. An in house enquiry that did not involve said Coach - end result, shown the exit door. Secrecy - why?
Oh and please remember all the MSM 'hype' over Razor, whilst Coach of the Crusaders, then again when he became Coach - All Blacks - did anyone notice that same MSM and their 'diatribes' on how bad he had become - how did they know?
- Tom Phillips. Judith Collins, quickly rushed to 'set' up a Committee (who are they) to "investigate" this saga - have we been told that this committee has met, did they operate like the Royal Commission in the Christchurch Mosque attacks (behind closed doors) - and we have already been told - the report will be confidential - so that means Oranga Tamariki & the Family Court get of scot free over the handling of this incident.
I will also add -
- Fonterra & Mainland Dairy products
- Heinz Watties, current actions are only the beginning, watch them close the Hastings Plant and put caveats on anyone purchasing building, plant or even gaining access to produce
Why did I add them, our Govt will have been more than aware of these actions - what did we get - crickets.
Oh and Peter, this is not the first time a Male of Maori ethnicity has walked from a NZ Court Room after the case against him was "dropped".
As in the incident written about by Peter, which he highlighted that the Crown Prosecutor is female, in the second also involved a female Barrister - is this coincidental in NZ Law, today?
If anyone is curious about the apparent collapse of official integrity read Sir John Glubb’s article The Fate of Empires. He analyses various past empires, and notes a pattern of decay that is now becoming obvious in our own nation. Usually this pattern plays itself out to final structural collapse. We are well on the way.
Are we likely to read about this in the MSM ?
Is the judiciary as morally corrupt as the MSM ?
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