Urewera-ruling-jeopardises-police-trials

by **Paddy** Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:52 am

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/5650650/Urewera-ruling-jeopardises-police-trials

This situation which is rapidly developing into an arse-covering exercise for the Crown, worries me.

Ignorance of the Law is no Defence in this country as Section 25 of the Crimes Act 1961 clearly spells out

"Ignorance of law
25 Ignorance of law
The fact that an offender is ignorant of the law is not an excuse for any offence committed by him."

It sorta of seems hard to believe that someone somewhere in the 'Police' organisation didn't have a wee worry once in a while about the potential illegalities of some of their actions, which the Govt. is now rushing to retrospectively excuse, so that trials and surveillance etc, can continue and 'evidence' this collected, be admissible.

We live in an democracy, supposedly. If the price of the 'Police getting it right' is the abandonment of of planned or current trials and the inability to make use of evidence illegally gained, so be it. That is a price which our society should insist is paid, on behalf of us all. This is an Election Year. These people, our political masters who twitch our strings once in a while and allow us to pretend we have a real voice which they heed and tremble before, need to be told that their behaviour in this respect is not acceptable.

If you want to email MP's, here is a Link to them: http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/MPP/MPs/MPs/

Paddy.