Jacinda Ardern sued over lockdown

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Master Geek
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#2469174 24-Apr-2020 12:41

BlinkyBill:

Answer this question - should the Prime Minister have to be distracted, in this precise case at this time, for the reasons given by the litigants?

Picture this the other way around then, lets say goverment was doing a real bad job, and it was just for political gain. What if she was sued then? Would it then be OK if she was distracted? What if the PM was Simon Bridges or Donald Trump?

quickymart

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#2470351 24-Apr-2020 14:36

Trump isn't smart enough to put his country into lockdown, so IMO that's a bit of a moot point.

BlinkyBill

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#2470354 24-Apr-2020 14:36

How about this example: say I took you to court on the grounds I felt you weren’t a safe driver, and my petition is to have you give up your right to drive. You haven’t done anything illegal - I am simply exercising my right to “hold you to account for your driving”. I lose because my case has no merit, but nevertheless you need to pay a lawyer, go to court, defend the case etc.

Then next week I take my neighbour to court because his house is badly painted and likely to cause seizure to passers-by. His house is fine and doesn’t cause seizures, but I am “holding him to account for his choice of house painting”. I lose, because my case has no merit.

Then the next week I hold The Warehouse to account for selling crap products to a gullible public. My case has no merit, and I lose again. I keep going, because I can, and all I am doing is “holding people and institutions to account for their actions”.

Is this OK?

Handle9

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#2470360 24-Apr-2020 14:46

NumPy:
BlinkyBill:

Having the right to do a thing includes the responsibility to execute your right in a responsible way.

So who gets to define the responsible way? I guess you missed my point completely, the only thing I am defending are our rights, and the right to call out somebody. It does not matter if they wrong or right, or who they are. It makes NZ great and that's how things should stay, its called freedom.

Oh dear. "Rights", "Freedom", "Make XYZ great"? It's all the American trifecta of stupidity.

New Zealand isn't a great country. It is a small social democracy tucked away at the bottom of the world. Historically on of its strengths has been less of a focus on rights and somewhat more of an interest in responsibilities.

Incidentally there are very few rights baked into the New Zealand legal system. Parliament can remove almost any right it choses and there is nothing the courts can do.

NumPy

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#2470403 24-Apr-2020 16:20

Handle9:

New Zealand isn't a great country. It is a small social democracy tucked away at the bottom of the world. Historically on of its strengths has been less of a focus on rights and somewhat more of an interest in responsibilities.

Incidentally there are very few rights baked into the New Zealand legal system. Parliament can remove almost any right it choses and there is nothing the courts can do.

Even the right to vote? What about the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion? Freedom of expression? What about the right of freedom from discrimination, thats 'baked' into our legal system? Should I go on?

New Zealand is a great country and we have a bill of rights that protects our citizens to promote basic human rights. No Parliament cannot just remove almost any right it chooses. Good luck to any goverment or PM that tries to do that.

elpenguino

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#2470407 24-Apr-2020 16:24

Handle9:

Incidentally there are very few rights baked into the New Zealand legal system. Parliament can remove almost any right it choses and there is nothing the courts can do.

Yes, I heard a legal beagle discussing the NZ constitution on RNZ a few years ago. I was amused to hear him say the human rights bill has the same legal standing as the 'dog control act' and could be changed on a simple majority.

Still, such a potentially easy loss of 'mah freedums' is not the kind of thing that gets kiwis rioting in the streets.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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Handle9

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#2470435 24-Apr-2020 17:17

NumPy:
Handle9:

New Zealand isn't a great country. It is a small social democracy tucked away at the bottom of the world. Historically on of its strengths has been less of a focus on rights and somewhat more of an interest in responsibilities.

Incidentally there are very few rights baked into the New Zealand legal system. Parliament can remove almost any right it choses and there is nothing the courts can do.

Even the right to vote? What about the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion? Freedom of expression? What about the right of freedom from discrimination, thats 'baked' into our legal system? Should I go on?

New Zealand is a great country and we have a bill of rights that protects our citizens to promote basic human rights. No Parliament cannot just remove almost any right it chooses. Good luck to any goverment or PM that tries to do that.

None of those rights are absolute and can be removed by act of parliament. If an act of parliament made Christianity illegal the courts would have no grounds to strike it down.

As mentioned above the bill of rights is just another act of parliament. New Zealand doesn't have a formal constitution, an upper house or much in the way of checks on the power of the executive.

From any definition of great New Zealand fails. It has no great economy, it has makes no great contribution to the world, it has no mighty military. It is a very nice place that is relatively safe, reasonably prosperous and generally a good country. Pompous assertions of greatness are best left to orangutans and haystacks.

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#2470439 24-Apr-2020 17:30

BlinkyBill:

How about this example: say I took you to court on the grounds I felt you weren’t a safe driver, and my petition is to have you give up your right to drive. You haven’t done anything illegal - I am simply exercising my right to “hold you to account for your driving”. I lose because my case has no merit, but nevertheless you need to pay a lawyer, go to court, defend the case etc.

Then next week I take my neighbour to court because his house is badly painted and likely to cause seizure to passers-by. His house is fine and doesn’t cause seizures, but I am “holding him to account for his choice of house painting”. I lose, because my case has no merit.

Then the next week I hold The Warehouse to account for selling crap products to a gullible public. My case has no merit, and I lose again. I keep going, because I can, and all I am doing is “holding people and institutions to account for their actions”.

Is this OK?

Is that you Winston?😉

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

chevrolux

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#2470479 24-Apr-2020 18:21

BlinkyBill:

How about this example: say I took you to court on the grounds I felt you weren’t a safe driver, and my petition is to have you give up your right to drive. You haven’t done anything illegal - I am simply exercising my right to “hold you to account for your driving”. I lose because my case has no merit, but nevertheless you need to pay a lawyer, go to court, defend the case etc.

Then next week I take my neighbour to court because his house is badly painted and likely to cause seizure to passers-by. His house is fine and doesn’t cause seizures, but I am “holding him to account for his choice of house painting”. I lose, because my case has no merit.

Then the next week I hold The Warehouse to account for selling crap products to a gullible public. My case has no merit, and I lose again. I keep going, because I can, and all I am doing is “holding people and institutions to account for their actions”.

Is this OK?

Bang on. If we allow this sort of rubbish to carry on we turn in to the litigious state that is seen in the US.

People who bring action like this should be heavily penalised, when found in the wrong - whether it be financial, or jailing/home-d/whatever, is dependent on the individual bringing the action.

Zeon

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#2470496 24-Apr-2020 18:46

chevrolux:

BlinkyBill:

How about this example: say I took you to court on the grounds I felt you weren’t a safe driver, and my petition is to have you give up your right to drive. You haven’t done anything illegal - I am simply exercising my right to “hold you to account for your driving”. I lose because my case has no merit, but nevertheless you need to pay a lawyer, go to court, defend the case etc.

Then next week I take my neighbour to court because his house is badly painted and likely to cause seizure to passers-by. His house is fine and doesn’t cause seizures, but I am “holding him to account for his choice of house painting”. I lose, because my case has no merit.

Then the next week I hold The Warehouse to account for selling crap products to a gullible public. My case has no merit, and I lose again. I keep going, because I can, and all I am doing is “holding people and institutions to account for their actions”.

Is this OK?

Bang on. If we allow this sort of rubbish to carry on we turn in to the litigious state that is seen in the US.

People who bring action like this should be heavily penalised, when found in the wrong - whether it be financial, or jailing/home-d/whatever, is dependent on the individual bringing the action.

Remember that the court can award costs to the winning party, at least in civil proceedings. If you wanted to litigate against anyone those costs are a pretty big deterrent when the defendant has spent $50,000 on their lawyers and the court tells you you have to pay.

Also the areas of litigation are much more limited in New Zealand. Personal harm cannot be litigated against (as far as I'm aware) which makes up a considerable amount of litigation in the US. We just aren't a litigous society.

There is 1 guy in nearly 5 million people who took this case. If it really was a problem and tying up the court's time then parliament would look into it but it doesn't seem like it is....

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Handle9

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#2470501 24-Apr-2020 18:57

Zeon:
Remember that the court can award costs to the winning party, at least in civil proceedings. If you wanted to litigate against anyone those costs are a pretty big deterrent when the defendant has spent $50,000 on their lawyers and the court tells you you have to pay.

Also the areas of litigation are much more limited in New Zealand. Personal harm cannot be litigated against (as far as I'm aware) which makes up a considerable amount of litigation in the US. We just aren't a litigous society.

There is 1 guy in nearly 5 million people who took this case. If it really was a problem and tying up the court's time then parliament would look into it but it doesn't seem like it is....

Generally the awarding of costs is the awarding of court costs not the costs to defend the action (ie legal costs).

I'm not suitably experienced to comment but I believe the awarding of more than that is very rare.

@dejadeadnz can you confirm please?

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SaltyNZ

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#2470511 24-Apr-2020 19:18

Handle9:

From any definition of great New Zealand fails. It has no great economy, it has makes no great contribution to the world, it has no mighty military.

Not necessarily. NZ ranks as one of only four countries in the world that could exert 'food power'.

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Handle9

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#2470513 24-Apr-2020 19:28

SaltyNZ:

Handle9:

From any definition of great New Zealand fails. It has no great economy, it has makes no great contribution to the world, it has no mighty military.

Not necessarily. NZ ranks as one of only four countries in the world that could exert 'food power'.

A study from 1976 is the reference?

Let's put it another way. If you asked someone from any European, North American or Asian country what the great countries of the world were do you think NZ would feature in the top 10?

That's not a put down of NZ, it's a small country of 5 millionish people. It just has another place in the world to those countries generally described as "great".

dejadeadnz

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#2470516 24-Apr-2020 19:33

Handle9: Generally the awarding of costs is the awarding of court costs not the costs to defend the action (ie legal costs).

I'm not suitably experienced to comment but I believe the awarding of more than that is very rare.

@dejadeadnz can you confirm please?

Correct. Scale costs are the default and the typical costs award are meant to represent around 1/3 of the other party's actual costs (increasingly it's nowhere near that but that's another story for another day). The theory behind this is that society and the parties at large obtain benefits from disputes being solved in a civilised and controlled way and, therefore, the costs of the winning side should not be entirely visited upon the "loser".

BTW, I also share the general tenor of your views throughout this thread. It's mostly filled with the predictable boring rants and raves about an admittedly silly lawsuit that ultimately was quickly sorted out by an independent court system within a liberal democracy. None of the suggested "solutions" will ever happen, nor are they worth an intelligent person's time of the day. In response to the usual ignorant ravings, some people also seem to think this case highlights some hitherto level of greatness about our country that is hard to observe (this case went exactly as how it would have gone in every one of the other tens of liberal democratic or at least rule-of-law oriented jurisdictions and there's nothing extraordinary about this) and, thus, the process throughout is hardly worthy of some massive celebration in a highly jingoistic and sycophantic way. It's rather embarrassing.

Really there's nothing to see here.

Rikkitic

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#2470517 24-Apr-2020 19:38

Handle9:

That's not a put down of NZ, it's a small country of 5 millionish people. It just has another place in the world to those countries generally described as "great".

I would describe New Zealand as 'fluffy'. It is a warm, cosy country with a big belly that is reassuring to snuggle up against.

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