The New Jacobins

Banish One Demon, Inherit Ten More Malevolent

Why should New Zealanders treat the law, the courts, and the justice system with any respect from this time onwards?  It appears they are about to become a sick joke.  The government has announced it will change the fundamental concepts of justice so radically that if a person is suspected of a crime the courts can restrict their lives so as to place them in a virtual prison.  Even if the person went to court, was exonerated and freed, they will be able to be punished by the courts, nonetheless. This from the NZ Herald:

Wide-ranging restraining orders will soon be in use to keep suspected child abusers away from children for up to 10 years.  Some will be prevented from going to parks or public swimming pools. . . . High Court and District Court judges will be able to impose the new civil orders on people who are tried for serious offences against children such as incest, sexual grooming or sexual violation - even if they are not convicted of the offence.
Ms Bennett said the scope of such orders would depend on the circumstances, and could prevent the person from living or working with children, up to blocking any association with children whatsoever, such as sitting next to a child on the bus.

What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?  Oh, that's so outdated, dearie.  We are going to get really serious about crime.  Now the judges can place restraining orders on individuals based on suspicion.


Spare us.  How myopically stupid and unjust can government become?  What this wonderfully progressive lurch does is establish a new principle of gross injustice: whatever crime society finds particularly odious or egregious can be put in a special category of  imposing state restraint on the grounds of mere suspicion.  How Stalinesque.  Koba the Dread would have loved this. 

Prime Minister John Key said the changes were the result of a two-year process and would be "significant and bold".  

And stupid.

Yes, we all know that child abuse is a terrible crime.  But unjust preventions that ride roughshod over fundamental principles of justice are equally terrible crimes.  If the justice system has delivered unsafe convictions in the past, even after a trial--as a result of abuse of the system, or incompetence, or prejudice, or whatever other inadequacy--do we think for a moment that this new "reform" with lesser checks and balances, lower standards of proof, and proceeding on the basis of mere suspicion (in some cases after a non-guilty verdict) will be free from perpetrated abuse and gross injustice?  It will be ten times worse.

This is the inevitable outcome when fallen revolutionaries assume the prerogatives of deity and by command attempt to remove evil from society.  One demon is thwarted, only to be replaced by ten demons far more evil and malevolent.