I (r0b) am a bit too buried in the end-of-year rush to have researched this well enough to write a competent post on the topic. But it’s worth discussing, and (as usual) Gordon Campbell has a thorough and insightful account. Here’s some extracts, go check out Campbell at Scoop for the full article:
Gordon Campbell on Judith Collins’ handling of the Bain compensation report
Presumably, we are only days away (at most) from learning the contents of the report on the David Bain compensation case prepared by the distinguished retired Canadian judge, Ian Binnie. [Update: The report is expect to be released today.] Whatever the Binnie report says, nothing in it will change the Mickey Mouse handling of this episode by Justice Minister Judith Collins – who managed to simultaneously attack Binnie’s findings and reasoning abilities in public, while claiming privilege (and thus binding him to silence) against releasing the evidence to back up her assertions. …
It gets worse. In the process, Collins also showed an unfair predisposition to consult with the prosecution. Collins sought “advice” on the Binnie report from the Solicitor General – whose office spent the best part of two decades maintaining Bain’s guilt. She is, of course, free to consult anyone she likes, but it is reasonable to expect she should do so in an even-handed fashion. Instead, she (at the very least) discussed the contents of the report and sought advice on it from the prosecution, while denying Bain’s defence team anything like a similar courtesy. She also hired Robert Fisher QC to provide a “peer review” of Binnie’s report – but, as Labour justice spokesperson Charles Chauvel has pointed out on RNZ this morning, Collins either doesn’t know or won’t tell us what Fisher’s terms of reference are, and what level of documentation he has been given to enable him to conduct, within a mere matter of days, a meaningful evaluation of Binnie’s report. …
This is banana republic stuff from Collins. Would any international justice in future be willing to step into the firing line for the kind of treatment that has been meted out to Binnie? Hardly. …
In the past few weeks, Collins has been mooted by Parliamentary insiders as the most likely replacement for John Key as leader of the National Party if Key (a) got hit by a bus or more likely (b) got sufficiently tired of his job as PM to call it quits. By her appalling handling of the Binnie report, Collins has surely torpedoed any claim that she may be fit to lead the country anytime in the near future. …
What a travesty from our “Justice” Minister. In the same week, Education Minister Hekia Parata has been found by the High Court to have acted unlawfully. Both Ministers retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.
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