First sign of tyranny; Reporter sent to prison for reporting criminal judgment

[innocence project]

Under the radar of what we consider to be a rights-friendly country, publisher Vince Siemer has been sentenced to six weeks prison for reporting that a NZ judge denied the 18 defendants in the 2007 Urewera raids their statutory right to trial by jury in 2010. It is the first time in the free and democratic world that a country has sentenced someone to prison for reporting a criminal judgment. Significantly, the order preventing publication was unlawful under the Criminal Procedures Act (something the NZ Court of Appeal ignored in upholding conviction and sentence).

An interesting comparison of New Zealand with Fiji is up on Siemer's website www.kiwisfirst.com.

[FiFi40]

This government is fast destroying the human rights of many mostly people they call the underclass. This seminar would be good to go to.

Seminar: Taking Cases to the UN Human Rights Committee

http://www.law.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/ho...jsp?cid=514007

[wepu67]

Agree, we must have the one of the poorest standards of Human Rights in the so called western world, the latest attacks on beneficiary rights to be notified first before search warrants are issued, this is a government ruse to blame all the ills of society on one group, we the public are saturated with rhetoric on this topic, I am unconvinced and deeply sceptical of successive governments who continue to allow benefit fraud and do not do a damn thing to simply prevent it.

[Shannon]

I have noticed that if you mention the Bill of rights these days, no one cares - I don't think it comes up for police or the courts much and they have got to a point where they ignore our rights..............

[Ugly Truth]

Human rights are fictions of law. Men and women have actual rights, but human beings do not.

person:
A man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the rights to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes. 1 Bouv. Inst. no. 137. A human being considered as capable of having rights and or being charged with duties, while a "thing" is the object over which rights may be exercised. (Black's 2nd (1910))

While is is often assumed that human beings are people in the fullest sense of the word, law looks to the intent or the intangible nature of things. Humans got their name from Cicero's homo humanus in order to distingish them from non-Roman "barbarians", also known as Cicero's homo barbarus.
The distinguishing factor of Romans was their citizenship. Unlike Greek citizens, Roman citizens were under the protection of the state and as such had abandoned the source of their natural rights.

[Shannon]

Does anyone know what Vince is doing, or where he is?

do you know about the protest yesterday?? He was there and he was meant to hand himself in to the High court today but I was notified he did not and told we would be informed soon what he is doing...... He will be arrested for not handing himself in though, so I was surprised as he didn't mention this yesterday.

[Ugly Truth]

From kiwisfirst.com:

the Courts roundly protected the unlawfulness of Winkelmann's order by asserting they need not determine the lawfulness on the ground even unlawful orders need to be obeyed until overturned - the Crown claiming a message needed to be sent to the larger community of this.

They use the language of necessity whenever they are acting outside of the law.
'that which is otherwise not lawful is made lawful by necessity' ~ Bracton's maxim

I'm skeptical that a warrant actually exists for his arrest. In the past I've been told twice that I will be arrested and it hasn't happened yet. I think it is because they can't get jurisdiction.