Thanks for your article Gary. As a layperson I'm grateful to be able to read about these goings-on that are happening out of sight of the demos. I'd be interested to know how the Law Schools are able to get away with teaching the students incorrect information.
Bottom line, NZ is not America. We should not really have a ‘Supreme Court’ at all.
As someone who has attended Law school I can also affirm the degree that students are essentially indoctrinated to become political activists who think they as an expert class know better than the plebeian masses!
Activist judges have no business sitting on New Zealand's supreme court or any other court for that matter. A mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure such individuals can never be appointed to the supreme court backed by a mechanism to remove them should one slip through the cracks. Equally, harsh penalties must also be applied to those involved in appointing an activist judge. The role is too important to leave anything to chance. Politics must be made absolutely verboten to the role. Clearly the current crop of supreme court judges has failed the grade on all levels and must be made an example of and sacked forthwith.
Thanks Gary. Your articles certainly keep this old brain exercised.
It seems to me that the Government is effectively saying, through its policies, that emissions cause sufficiently serious harm to justify major preventative measures. But it has not established a methodology by which that harm, its extent, or the extent to which particular actions or policies contribute to preventing or mitigating it, can be objectively determined.
So there is a question: can a court develop an evidential methodology for establishing harm where Parliament has recognised the underlying problem but has not codified either the harm or its extent?
There is ample precedent for courts determining novel forms of harm and causation where Parliament has not specifically codified them. So why should we expect the courts to decide that Smith's claim is impossible, or that there is no way of determining the harm, before the evidence has even been heard?
It was ultimately right for Parliament to step in and clarify the position, but I also think it was right for the courts to allow the case to proceed pending that intervention.
More generally, I think this problem has been created by Parliament itself. It has implemented what many would regard as fairly draconian measures to address anthropogenic global warming, yet those measures are not clearly tied to any model that quantifies either the harm being avoided or the extent to which the measures themselves reduce that harm.
What is also disturbing is that a generation of Lawyers are being indoctrinated at law schools that the judiciary has the power to not only override Parliament but to also introduce Lore as a new class of Law as articulated by the President of the Supreme Court.
Democracy is under attack on more than one front in New Zealand.
OK, now take aim at the Waitangi Tribunal.
The NZ Judiciary is tainted by the their Activist Judges and should stick to it’s knitting, or resign or retire. The Law Society same.
Never to be paid by the State again.
Thanks for your article Gary. As a layperson I'm grateful to be able to read about these goings-on that are happening out of sight of the demos. I'd be interested to know how the Law Schools are able to get away with teaching the students incorrect information.
Bottom line, NZ is not America. We should not really have a ‘Supreme Court’ at all.
As someone who has attended Law school I can also affirm the degree that students are essentially indoctrinated to become political activists who think they as an expert class know better than the plebeian masses!
That is extremely disturbing to know. Who oversees and audits Law Schools' curricula in NZ? This ideological capture is like a virus!
Look at the rampant Tikanga apologists for one !!
And I was there like early 2010s. Who knows what it’s like now?
The long March through the institutions…
Activist judges have no business sitting on New Zealand's supreme court or any other court for that matter. A mechanism needs to be implemented to ensure such individuals can never be appointed to the supreme court backed by a mechanism to remove them should one slip through the cracks. Equally, harsh penalties must also be applied to those involved in appointing an activist judge. The role is too important to leave anything to chance. Politics must be made absolutely verboten to the role. Clearly the current crop of supreme court judges has failed the grade on all levels and must be made an example of and sacked forthwith.
Thanks Gary. Your articles certainly keep this old brain exercised.
It seems to me that the Government is effectively saying, through its policies, that emissions cause sufficiently serious harm to justify major preventative measures. But it has not established a methodology by which that harm, its extent, or the extent to which particular actions or policies contribute to preventing or mitigating it, can be objectively determined.
So there is a question: can a court develop an evidential methodology for establishing harm where Parliament has recognised the underlying problem but has not codified either the harm or its extent?
There is ample precedent for courts determining novel forms of harm and causation where Parliament has not specifically codified them. So why should we expect the courts to decide that Smith's claim is impossible, or that there is no way of determining the harm, before the evidence has even been heard?
It was ultimately right for Parliament to step in and clarify the position, but I also think it was right for the courts to allow the case to proceed pending that intervention.
More generally, I think this problem has been created by Parliament itself. It has implemented what many would regard as fairly draconian measures to address anthropogenic global warming, yet those measures are not clearly tied to any model that quantifies either the harm being avoided or the extent to which the measures themselves reduce that harm.
Excellent thank you Gary.
What is also disturbing is that a generation of Lawyers are being indoctrinated at law schools that the judiciary has the power to not only override Parliament but to also introduce Lore as a new class of Law as articulated by the President of the Supreme Court.
Democracy is under attack on more than one front in New Zealand.
Disturbing!