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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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Tim, you write above of
the report being "virtually all unanimous". You mean after Clem
Simich and Lianne Dalziel departed from the original 11, of the 9 left you
all were virtually unamimous? Is this really 'virtually unanimous'? And
anyway the report reflects several differences that are mutually
inconsistent. Clem Simich's name
appears in the report to be connected to this condemnation of it: "I
believe the committee has followed a process inconsistent with the
expectations of the petitioners and the recommendations are
inappropriate" - what is your response? So it is only up to a
point that you as chair seem to have dealt well-enough with a sort of
intra-J&E-cttee-family ruckus. However, you have only
set up a relay of delay processes that don't strongly enough suggest exactly
how any political input could work to address the meat of the issues in the
Civic case. One main one being the polarisation amongst psychologists, counsellors
and psychiatrists over issues around ‘evidence’ and how this deleteriously
infiltrated agencies and authorities including police (and still does). This
means you haven't been clear about what is at issue in doing justice to the
subject. (But I am pleased to
now see your additional remark above in this blog that someone (the J&E committee?)
should "examine how the 1989 law reforms (passed in an atmosphere of
some hysteria about child abuse, and now regarded with less than respect by
courts) worked for the past 15 years". The idea of a Privy
Council appeal has to get past justice officials and they are not
constitutionally beholden to do what the committee asks I believe. It has
already been said your committee's recommendation as to where that request
should go (you said the Attorney General) was wrong (for lack of
understanding things legal). Using the Privy Council
is atavistic for NZ now (I am not saying it is not legal for the Ellis case,
just sort of ill-fitting in character). The Privy Council sounds important
and far away but it has NZ judges on it. In the case of Geoff of Wellington
(in similar circumstances as you know) they gave him nothing I understand.
Why should it/they be any better this time? Tim, except for possibly
the Privy Council idea, your committee's recommendations can have little
current effect - a CCRC is pie in the sky at this point and Ellis’s case in
relation to it, unknown. You
have timed the report – or someone has arranged it – to be so close to the
election that nothing is clear. Even if Labour is re-elected, the report's
direction and recommendations could be fabricated into something both highly
politicised on the one hand, and avoidable and capable of being watered down
to uselessness, on the other. by Nancy Sutherland PS: What does the committee's
report mean when it uses the term ‘in isolation’ in the course of saying that
the level of anxiety over the Civic case "in isolation .. is exceeded by
levels of public anxiety about many other matters"? Apart from that point,
which I can’t get, deciding against doing a good in a first case by arguing
that there are other equally or more deserving second and third cases on
which no action is being taken, is not a justification for not acting for
good on the first matter (see Friday’s article in The Press on clear
thinking, one of a series). I
hope the Greens' weekend call by should-know-better-re-Civic-case co-leader
Rod Donald to 'force other parties to focus on serious issues' (such as world
poverty!) is not referring to the Ellis/Civic case as unserious issue? |
