Reform or against democracy?

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heavyusr

83 posts

Master Geek
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#138699 14-Jan-2014 02:06

I cannot believe what I just read about 'reform':

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11185284

Putting bail conditions on parents for crimes their kids do?
So a kid walking home from school throws a rock at a car window and the parents would be in trouble with the law too. Woah

Removing the right to silence. What! Protection from self incrimination is something I thought New Zealand would have forever.

Pock

156 posts

Master Geek
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#966533 14-Jan-2014 05:38

Another well thought out bill by an upstanding MP. :|

Dingbatt

6804 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#966541 14-Jan-2014 07:16

Pock: Another well thought out bill by an upstanding MP. :|

For a start it is four individual private member's bills. As far as I know all proposed bills must go before the Clerk of the House and be scutinised to ensure they can be enacted before they are put in the ballot.
I would have thought being an ex-cop provided the experience to produce well thought out bills that tweak the criminal justice legislaton. Having had to deal with 'scum of the earth' type clients over the years may have pushed his outlook to the right, but in each of the proposals I see a reaction to events of the past 5 years or so. Some of them quite high profile.
As far as 'against democracy', can the OP explain how a private member's bill that will be voted on in a democratically elected House of Representatives, and must achieve a majority to become law, is against democracy? Possibly infringing human rights or basic freedoms, but not really an attack on democracy.

As for the merits of the bills themselves, I will withhold my comments.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

jpoc

1043 posts

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#966576 14-Jan-2014 08:48

heavyusr: I cannot believe what I just read about 'reform':

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11185284

Putting bail conditions on parents for crimes their kids do?
So a kid walking home from school throws a rock at a car window and the parents would be in trouble with the law too. Woah

Removing the right to silence. What! Protection from self incrimination is something I thought New Zealand would have forever.

Reading those comments makes me wonder whether or not you actually read and understood what was being proposed.

On bail conditions for parents, there is nothing to suggest that the parents would be held liable for the child's crime. The proposal is just that, if a child accused of an offence is to be bailed and not placed under CYF supervision then conditions can be set on the parents as well as on the child. For example, if the parents were out partying while the child was throwing rocks at cars then the condition might be that the child is subject to an after school curfew and one of the parents must stay home to see that the curfew is respected. The parents would be free to refuse in which case the child could go to CYF. Seems reasonable to me.

The right to silence issue is only being proposed in those cases where the victim of a crime is unable to speak for themselves. The most obvious case being the Kahui murders in which two babies were beaten to death and the whole family just decided to shut up and protect the murderer.

Neither of these things are a threat to democracy.