"OTAGO DAILY TIMES"

Dunedin, New Zealand.

Wednesday, 05 December 2001.

OPINION

JUSTICE POSSESSED

Justice Minister Phil Goff should read Lynley Hood's book on the conviction of Peter Ellis, writes the Otago Daily Times in an editorial.

Alfred Dreyfus was a French army officer who, in 1894, was sentenced to life imprisonment after being accused of selling secrets to the German military attache in Paris.

Dreyfus was also a Jew, and thus an "outsider".

In 1898, his case was reopened following a campaign by the politician Georges Clemenceau, and especially by the writer Emile Zola, who argued that Dreyfus was a victim of a swirl of conflict between royalist, nationalist and militarist elements in the French governmental system, and anti-semitism and anti-clerical elements in the judicial system. He was retried and eventually pardoned in 1906.

It would be unwise to draw too direct a parallel between the historical events of 19th-century fin de siecle France and 20th-century Christchurch, but the trial and eventual conviction of Peter Ellis - like Dreyfus, an "outsider" - was undoubtedly an event where the deliberation of justice took place in questionable circumstances, and in an atmosphere infused with elements and circumstances that may have coloured the trial.

Mr Ellis, readers will recall, was convicted in 1993 of abusing seven children in his care at the Christchurch Civic Creche between 1986 and 1991. He was released in February after serving two-thirds of a 10-year sentence.

Perhaps modern society, like all others, requires the occasional scapegoat to be sacrificed, for upon the scapegoat we can vent our feelings of anger, fear, vengeance, and guilt.

That such a scapegoat deserves punishment is rarely questioned in informal public debate, especially if the individual to be sacrificed happens to be somewhat outside the "norm" in personality or demeanour.

Our adversarial system of justice, which in theory is supposed to presume everyone innocent until proven guilty, can usually resist the influence of the mob; remain unaffected by the powerful forces of denunciation, and disregard the peculiar public voyeurism which includes elements of envy or dislike in great crimes. But not always.

Mr Ellis and his supporters have consistently maintained his innocence, and that claim must be balanced by the judicial processes his case has undergone since his conviction when, it might be supposed, every possible test of innocence has been applied.

That was certainly the impression left with the public earlier this year, after the Governor-General - acting on a Government recommendation - turned down Mr Ellis' application for a pardon. That decision was based on a review of the case by the former Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Eichelbaum, and matters raised by counsel for Mr Ellis.

Subsequently, the publication of Dunedin author Lynley Hood's A City Possessed has raised what many would regard as crucial matters of context: the apparent sequence of events, behaviours, and indeed the virulent atmosphere surrounding the case and the trial.

Mrs Hood's careful investigation - hers is an extraordinary book by any standards - does not make a claim of guilt or innocence for Mr Ellis, but it has exposed flaws in the criminal justice system that raise very serious doubts about whether Mr Ellis received a fair trial.

And that is the crucial point. A number of eminent members of the legal profession have read the book, and some have written reviews of it. Those which we have seen all conclude that the author has carefully and thoroughly unveiled a chain of events and circumstances which may have led to a miscarriage of justice. Many believe Mr Ellis should not have been convicted and ought now to be pardoned.

The response to all this by the Minister of Justice, Phil Goff, has been that of a man with his head firmly buried in the sand. Mr Goff, according to his spokesman, has not read the book and does not intend to.

He is content to rely on the Eichelbaum report as "the end of the matter". But of course, it is not the end of the matter, just as sending Alfred Dreyfus to Devil's Island for life was not the "end of the matter". Mrs Hood's book has laid bare systemic failures in our justice system and Mr Goff should read it.

In a democracy wholly reliant on the integrity and impartiality of that system, any failure by a government to take all possible steps to correct discovered defects must be seen as an act of moral cowardice.