Local lesson in taser death - lawyer - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Local lesson in taser death - lawyer - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz Hear Marie Dyhrberg speak out against taser - in the link above.

Police have duty to protect public

Police have duty to protect public - PM - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

It is true enough that the police have a duty to protect the public. But they also have a duty to bring charges effectively. This "is not going to happen" if the laws that they try to apply are described by the Solicitor-General David Collins as so complex as to be nearly impossible to bring charges in a domestic case.

If civil unrest, protest and political activism is to be redefined as "terrorism" then laws to protect us from that may be a good idea. But the law must be even handed and secrecy is required to protect the public safety, or the safety of undercover informants, etc.

The real problem is not that the police acted, it was the premature and unnecessary invocation of the Terrorism law to deliberately make it fail. In the end is it a case that the morale imperatives that the Bush war imposes on rational governments cause their terrorism policy to lack teeth? Or should we dig more into the assertion that the police are unable to follow laws that have been drafted (when the rest of us somehow are expected to follow other laws) due to complexity?

What is so complex? If the police can prove intent to endanger the lives of others then they should prove it. Having illegal weapons is not the modus operandi of the terrorism that overreaching laws are there to protect us against. If these people were going to kill others there needs to be a motive established and public airing of their sins. It would have been good enough to bust the guilty for weapons.

If an individual wants to declare war on the entire country, perhaps we should wait until they actually do something and send in the army and shoot back. But to associate "terrorism" with Mäori political activists, or peace campaigners is just why we have civil libertarians arguing for human rights. Mäori Sovereignty is a political issue that would be damaged badly by acts of terrorism as any same person would realize. Many let off a bit of steam. If one were a campaigner for Treaty rights the association of terrorism with natural rights of law would be sickening.

The reason the Terrorism laws were impossible to apply is simply that it was wrong to charge them without real evidence. Terrorism laws overreach to address terrorists and preventing terrorist attacks, and although the police were concerned about the illegal activities they are still bound by due process. It was probably good enough to simply get them on gun-law violation and leave the terrorism law to the emergence of the actual situation they address.