Sclerotic Incompetence

In Memory of Murray Wilkinson

The Justice system in New Zealand has some huge holes in it.  On the eighth of January, NZ police arrested an 18 year old man and charged him with the murder of an expat Kiwi, who had returned for his summer holidays to Waihi, together with his family.  It had all appearances at the time of a random, senseless murder.

For the victim, Murray Wilkinson and his family it still appears that way.  But now it emerges that the accused was, at the time, out on bail.  Once again we see the devastation that can arise when people arrested and bailed for serious criminal are allowed out on the streets, prior to their trials.  Lawyer and former politician, Stephen Franks documents some of the inanities and failings and blameshifting of our judicial system:

The 18 year old charged with murdering Murray Wilkinson outside his Waihi caravan applied for bail again yesterday. Bail was denied but I'm told that his QC indicated he would try again.  The accused has name suppression so we can’t learn the truth about him but if today’s judges had half the common sense of previous generations’ such an application would be unthinkable. . . .

Judges could at least make it clear that offenders who show their lack of remorse with stupid applications will have that insolence reflected in the eventual sentence. Lawyers, whose duty it is to make such applications whatever their personal view of them, could then explain that offensive procedures are only worth the risk for defendants who are confident of being acquitted. . . .

 The accused in Waihi can’t be blamed for expecting courts to be indulgent – he was apparently free to hurt fresh victims on New Year’s Eve because he was out on bail on charges for incidents some weeks earlier and six months ago.

Judges have allowed our system to become so constipated that a six month old charge remained unheard. Even our generation's judges should feel they can’t justify giving bail on a third charge (of murder) but who knows?. Mr Wilkinson may have paid the price for previous indulgence, not the judges.

Judges are using the constipation of the court system to justify granting bail to those accused of violent crimes.  Sitting around six to nine months in prison waiting for a trial amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.  Fair enough.  Then judges ought to do what they can to ensure that the system does not get clogged with the repeat offences of violent criminals whilst out on bail--by making frivolous applications for bail have a cost to the one being charged. 

Moreover, bail should be far, far harder to get granted, particularly when people are before the courts charged with violent crimes.  There is now in New Zealand a long litany of victims, some now dead, who have suffered at the hands of people charged with violent crimes, yet allowed out on bail--freely to roam and devastate others at will. 

The judicial system and the parliamentarians have demonstrated repeatedly that they are incapable of changing the system for the better.  Its time for the people to apply their common sense and demand change via the ballot box and all other lawful means.