Posts Tagged ‘diplomatic immunity’

Let’s play blame the public servant

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, July 4th, 2014 - 50 comments

John Key has announced an inquiry into how the ambiguity in New Zealand’s position relating to the Malaysian diplomat was created.  And he has already blamed the Public Servant involved while refusing to criticise Murray McCully.  Clearly we now have a situation where instead of there being Ministerial Responsibility for the performance of their Department the Government is now entitled to attack a public servant in an attempt to divert political blame.

Was John Key telling the truth about the Malaysian Diplomat?

Written By: - Date published: 5:34 pm, July 1st, 2014 - 209 comments

John Key has claimed that New Zealand asked Malaysia to waive diplomatic immunity for the Diplomat charged with breaking and entering and assault with intent to rape.  But news is breaking that Malaysia was willing to waive diplomatic immunity but decided to take up New Zealand’s offer to invoke diplomatic immunity.  So who is right?  And if the offer was made why did John Key say otherwise?

Update: From a McCully email it appears Malaysia thought that refusing to waive immunity would be acceptable to New Zealand.  Details of the “informal communications” need to be released so that we can judge for ourselves what was actually discussed and agreed to.