More Green's Bull Shi!

[Blue Skies]

Things must be bad indeed.

By now we would usually have a wall of text from you as to why everything is winnies fault. or Seymour. Or Luxon.

For you to be so quiet it must be pretty grim indeed!

Ha!

Just to be clear, my view on Golriz is high profile celebrities, sports people, politicians, should be treated like everybody else when it comes to court sentencing & there's too much emphasis on mitigation due to reputational damage already done, and specious mental health issues. A conviction & some Community Service would be appropriate in my view. And might need to re train for some other career than law.
If it was an impulsive one off, would be different, but 3 separate occasions !

As for Darleen Tana, the way the Greens have mishandled it, is really bad. Imagine it's quite difficult though as its allegations & she is a powerful Maori women & anyone whose dealt with HR issues in large organisations (i.e. the Greens) would know what I mean. Tricky.

[winner69]

Darleen was Green spokesperson for small business

[Blue Skies]

Darleen was Green spokesperson for small business

Yes I know but the large organisation I was referring to was the Greens, not her husbands business.

[Balance]

Revelations coming out (substantiated by other sources like YouTube, mobile texts etc) show multiple digressions from the law by Tana and her company :

Illegally hiring overseas workers without valid work permits/visas

Paying cash to circumvent taxation requirements

Circumventing employees’ holiday entitlement

Underpaying staff

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3502...t-exploitation

[777]

Revelations coming out (substantiated by other sources like YouTube, mobile texts etc) show multiple digressions from the law by Tana and her company :

Illegally hiring overseas workers without valid work permits/visas

Paying cash to circumvent taxation requirements

Circumventing employees’ holiday entitlement

Underpaying staff

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3502...t-exploitation

No wonder she was accepted as a Green Party member then.

[Balance]

No wonder she was accepted as a Green Party member then.

And Chloe Swarbrick (knowing full well the allegations against Tana already) was very happy to have the alleged-migrant-exploiting MP standing behind her last week, grinning like a cat with cream :



Same Darleen Tana who delivered her maiden speech expressing hope for tamariki, mokopuna bs bs bs … because migrants (especially illegal ones) can be exploited?

[nztx]

No wonder she was accepted as a Green Party member then.

Wonder what wishful excuses will be trotted out this time ?


Any other Green MP's awaiting a planned plank walking exercise or wait a while now ?


Wonder what the walls are looking like in Marama's office - many holes ? furniture still standing ?


Poor old James probably left with good timing -- might have realised that the only hair he would have left would have been a few whiskers & b*m fluff around his chin if he waited longer

[winner69]

At this rate Ben Doyle will soon be a MP

Seems a good enough guy

[Balance]

Conflict of interest?

You betcha when the judge and Golriz used to work on cases together!

Peter Williams: The Ghahraman Conflict

What was that judge thinking?

That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible.

There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on the case in Stuff in 2016 and another story about them working together in the New Zealand Herald in February 2018.

Why Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself from Ghahraman’s court appearance on shoplifting charges this week is a question only she can answer. The former MP pleaded guilty but the conflict of interest is so obvious as to be laughable.

This piece of news became known later in the day of the court appearance. Callers to talkback radio identified the issue that night, and Cam Slater unearthed the two historic news reports on the BFD the following morning.

The topic was running hot on Twitter (X) all day Thursday and Philip Crump from Newstalk ZB Plus published a lengthy story on the matter late on Thursday afternoon, seeking comment from the Chief District Court Judge.

(The Chief DCJ’s response is that at the hearing “no perceived conflict was raised.” The PR statement went on to say “as the matter is still before the court it would not be appropriate to comment further.”)

Crump, being the top lawyer that he is, goes on to explain the District Court Recusal Guidelines. Again, the wording is so clearcut it beggars belief Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself.

"The guiding principle is that a Judge is disqualified from sitting if in the circumstances there is a real possibility that in the eyes of a fair-minded and fully informed observer the Judge might not be impartial in reaching a decision in the case." (Emphasis added)

We know the New Zealand legal and judicial community is relatively small. Many a time a lawyer will appear before a judge they may once have been in the same firm as.

But that’s when a lawyer is representing a client.

Not many lawyers will have sat in the dock as accused criminals in front of a judge they were once a colleague of, and in the Court of Appeal no less.

In my social circle, I am acquaintances, possibly even friends, with two DCJs. If I was to appear in front of either of them charged with a crime, I would expect them to recuse themselves. If they didn’t, I would ask my lawyer to raise the matter. That is the only fair and decent thing to do in an honest society.

Until 6pm Thursday, Crump’s was the only report from what you might call the mainstream media to report of what is surely a salient fact in the Ghahraman saga. Yet his story is behind a paywall, and his colleagues at neither the New Zealand Herald or Newstalk ZB itself have not thought the issue worthwhile to follow up.

It goes without saying that Stuff, RNZ and Newshub did not bother with this new development in the story either.

1 News led the bulletin with it on Thursday night but the conflict issue was not mentioned in a long website post on Ghahraman’s offending.

Which begs the question - why ?

As citizens we should be outraged at this.

The hearing was brought forward a week at very short notice. Is that because Judge Pecotic would be sitting on Wednesday and could help her erstwhile lawyer colleague?

Will the same judge conduct the sentencing in June?

If she is will the prosecution counsel raise this obvious conflict then?

The days since Ghahraman’s guilty plea have been a triumph for social media and citizen journalism.

And the mainstream outlets wonder why they’re going broke and the public is losing trust in them.

Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack

[mistaTea]

Conflict of interest?

You betcha when the judge and Golriz used to work on cases together!

Peter Williams: The Ghahraman Conflict

What was that judge thinking?

That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible.

There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on the case in Stuff in 2016 and another story about them working together in the New Zealand Herald in February 2018.

Why Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself from Ghahraman’s court appearance on shoplifting charges this week is a question only she can answer. The former MP pleaded guilty but the conflict of interest is so obvious as to be laughable.

This piece of news became known later in the day of the court appearance. Callers to talkback radio identified the issue that night, and Cam Slater unearthed the two historic news reports on the BFD the following morning.

The topic was running hot on Twitter (X) all day Thursday and Philip Crump from Newstalk ZB Plus published a lengthy story on the matter late on Thursday afternoon, seeking comment from the Chief District Court Judge.

(The Chief DCJ’s response is that at the hearing “no perceived conflict was raised.” The PR statement went on to say “as the matter is still before the court it would not be appropriate to comment further.”)

Crump, being the top lawyer that he is, goes on to explain the District Court Recusal Guidelines. Again, the wording is so clearcut it beggars belief Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself.

"The guiding principle is that a Judge is disqualified from sitting if in the circumstances there is a real possibility that in the eyes of a fair-minded and fully informed observer the Judge might not be impartial in reaching a decision in the case." (Emphasis added)

We know the New Zealand legal and judicial community is relatively small. Many a time a lawyer will appear before a judge they may once have been in the same firm as.

But that’s when a lawyer is representing a client.

Not many lawyers will have sat in the dock as accused criminals in front of a judge they were once a colleague of, and in the Court of Appeal no less.

In my social circle, I am acquaintances, possibly even friends, with two DCJs. If I was to appear in front of either of them charged with a crime, I would expect them to recuse themselves. If they didn’t, I would ask my lawyer to raise the matter. That is the only fair and decent thing to do in an honest society.

Until 6pm Thursday, Crump’s was the only report from what you might call the mainstream media to report of what is surely a salient fact in the Ghahraman saga. Yet his story is behind a paywall, and his colleagues at neither the New Zealand Herald or Newstalk ZB itself have not thought the issue worthwhile to follow up.

It goes without saying that Stuff, RNZ and Newshub did not bother with this new development in the story either.

1 News led the bulletin with it on Thursday night but the conflict issue was not mentioned in a long website post on Ghahraman’s offending.

Which begs the question - why ?

As citizens we should be outraged at this.

The hearing was brought forward a week at very short notice. Is that because Judge Pecotic would be sitting on Wednesday and could help her erstwhile lawyer colleague?

Will the same judge conduct the sentencing in June?

If she is will the prosecution counsel raise this obvious conflict then?

The days since Ghahraman’s guilty plea have been a triumph for social media and citizen journalism.

And the mainstream outlets wonder why they’re going broke and the public is losing trust in them.

Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack

Pete is good value.

I know this is the Green bashing forum. but how come Pete (retired) is asking more questions than our so-called media?