New Zealands Manukau District Court Judge Charles Blackie, incompetent clown or simply corrupt?
Judge Blackie is an ill informed, maladjusted, archaic, lawyer that, just sadly, happens to be a District Court Judge. But is he incompetent or corrupt?
Most District Court Judges, with the exceptions of a few Judges that have enjoyed considerable financial and legal success, merely make the jump from journeyman lawyer to judge chump, or chumpess, on the basis that they are mates with a political party that is normally full of members that are also unsuccessful lawyers, hence the atrocious legislation that comes to pass.
But Blackie’s incompetence, or lack of nouse, is somewhat forgivable – because he was raised on the old media format of the entrenched broadsheets and government run radio and television stations producing the spin that the Government of the day wanted printed and promoted.
Also LF understands that Judge Blackie faced legal argument from two lay litigants that could have impaired him from reaching an appropriate decision. That’s if the judge did not have malice himself, or was incompetent. If a decision is plainly wrong because of the Court not having jurisdiction, as is the case in this case, why is it upon Slater to appeal within a time frame of 28 days. The order does not become legal at any time.
LF suggests an appropriate action would be for senior counsel to intervene claiming Amicus Curiae status seeking to intellectually assist the lowest judicial rung on a decaying ladder to freedom of choice, association, and belief, before the District Court is slammed in the internet media as so maladjusted as to be inoperative to rule on matters concerning the internet and its inherent freedoms that have secured every citizen of the globe, the ability to strike against tyranny and other wrongful action taken by powerful people and entities.
What Judge Blackie has done is inexcusable in law; as he has shown apparent tyranny as Hitler, Stalin, and Key did. We use the term “apparent” as to still offer the excuse of incompetence. The decision of brethren District Court Judge Gittos, relating to ex bankrupt Blomfields application to have Slater held in contempt, also discloses that Gittos’s competency is desperately in need of remedial legal training, or he too is corrupt.
LF says this because Blackies ruling on the original interlocutory application declaring Slater subject to normal subpoena was in want of jurisdiction as only a High Court Justice can make such a ruling, and in the case of Slaters position, it is respectfully suggested that the High Court would be amenable to sitting as a full Court [two judges] on such a matter or importance going forward. During this appeal other interested parties could seek to intervene inclusive of the the Attorney General, or a number of bloggers. However the only way to the High Court is through Blackie deciding that he was in want of jurisdiction to decide the matter and even then this is fraught with issues, as being in want of jurisdiction does not automatically mean that the High Court Judge could decide anything other than a District Court Judge could not decide the issue. It may be that the plaint was filed in the wrong jurisdiction in the first place.
Judge Blackie’s contrived reliance on the “thoughts” of certain members of the Law Commission about some blogs its members have read is beyond understanding but for a desperation to find something to support the unsupportable.
What our readership must understand is the following. Blackies considerations are inherently misleading as he did not include in his judgment very positive comments made by the Commission about the growing role of bloggers and that his “selected” statement was from a Law Commissions “issues” paper; not from its final report which stated; [2013 final report on New Media meeting New Media [p61, para 3.39];
There is ample evidence of the profound and growing influence new media are having both on mainstream media’s culture and content. As we discussed in chapter 2 of our Issues Paper, there are well over 200 current affairs bloggers in New Zealand, some of which have become a rich alternative source of information and commentary. Although primarily a forum for the expression of robust opinion, a number of high profile blog sites are used to break news. Blogger are also increasingly taking on a watch dog role over mainstream media, critiquing their performance and alerting the public to their alleged failures.
The Law Commission was in fact specifically opining that bloggers should be included in any new regulatory regime for the “media”, not that they were not covered by the Evidence Act 2006, nor that they were not “media” as currently determined by the Act.
The Law Commission was of the mind that it would be better to legislate to control or influence bloggers that would be bound by a hypothetical ethics regime and likely influence less reputable bloggers to want to become “self” regulated [Our opinion].
This just shows how out of touch the Law Commission is, let alone the Courts. Bloggers do not accept the rule of a bunch of self appointed law priests that maintain that the interpretation of law should be left to those with a 4 year degree in basically English with a bit of latin thrown in to rekindle “the magic”.
As for the experience aspect. Any qualified lawyer admitted to the bar can become a judge having served only 7 years in practice. Maybe the country needs some 27 year old Judges that know where the world is going, rather then where it’s been – in fucking darkness in the control of a few scoundrels that want to remain shrouded behind the protective cloak of conservative maladjusted reality sold through the mainstream media. Guys and girls on the gravy train – your ride is about to be derailed.
Further Blackies use of the “thoughts” of the Law Commissioners is around the wrong way, and therefore not applicable to judicial considerations. Judges often reflect on what was stated by the Law Commission when Judges are interpreting a law that came about consequential of the Law Commissions recommendations to the Government and indeed parliament as a whole.
That is to say that the Government of the day accepted the Commissions recommendation of change or inclusive in an Act, or the making of an entirely new Act.
The Act may have gone into law without major consideration of a particular section of the Act through the three readings of the Bill and the select committee process. Therefore a Judge may look to the in-depth considerations of the Law Commission that promoted the change in the law. To simply explain what we mean. Law Commission reasoning can be used after their idea becomes law, not before it becomes law, or when it is not in fact the law.
But what Judge Blackie has done is the reverse, and to be frank amounts to duplicitousness. Blackie has, by omission, and commission, misled the litigants, the media, and through the people he alone has decided is the media, the public, as to what the Law Commission finally stated, and that he had acted intra vires [within power] to rule that Slater was not the media and not protected by the Evidence Act.
The reading of the Acts interpretation of what constitutes a member of the media clearly envelopes Slater and his popular blog. Somehow Blackie finds Slater excluded on the basis of the Law Commissions commentary that blogs can include material that is not what would normally be found in other media and does so in want of jurisdiction [ultra vires]. But for the existence of bias, and/or malice, Blackies inexplicable findings need some other reasonable explanation that does not seem available. LF has earlier referred our readership to section 68 of the Evidence Act 2006; particularly sub section 2;
68 Protection of journalists’ sources
(1) If a journalist has promised an informant not to disclose the informant’s identity, neither the journalist nor his or her employer is compellable in a civil or criminal proceeding to answer any question or produce any document that would disclose the identity of the informant or enable that identity to be discovered.
(2) A Judge of the High Court may order that subsection (1) is not to apply
Blackie is not a serving High Court Judge and never will be one. He only has jurisdiction that is given to him by Acts of Parliament, and Blackie has clearly, in this case, promoted that he has a power to, by powers bestowed upon him by parliament, make an order that can be subjected to powers of contempt/enforcement.
Blackie has also come to a conclusion that is clearly not in keeping with what subsection 68 defines is a journalist, and a news medium, which subsection states for clarity;
“ journalist means a person who in the normal course of that person’s work may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium news medium means a medium for the dissemination to the public or a section of the public of news and observations on news public interest in the disclosure of evidence includes, in a criminal proceeding, the defendant’s right to present an effective defence.
Another major hurdle for Blackie, even though he can’t possibly get past not having the power to make the determinations that he has, is that Blackie has not correctly assessed “having regard to the issues to be determined in that proceeding and the public interest in the disclosure of evidence of the identity of the informant”
What possible public interest avails here relating to an recent bankrupt who has over the years bullshitted his way around the country, and at his “business” height failed as a pizza franchise owner.
As for Blomfields personal plight in that Slater has repeated what was said by Blomfield to others, which Blomfield now wants to explain how it should be interpreted by suing Slater for defamation;- what the fuck is this doing before the Courts in the first instance.
Blackie then remarkably considers the application of the High Court Rules to a matter that he has no jurisdiction to determine. This is not to say that District Court Judges cannot consider Rules of the High Court when they are similar to Rules of the District Court, in that the District Court Judge may be assisted by precedent decisions of say the Court of Appeal as to the application of the similar High Court Rule, but nowhere is this situation found before Blackie.
Blackies judgment cites a High Court Rule that says a defamation defendant doesn’t have to disclose sources before trial when pleading honest opinion or privilege.
Blackie finds this Rule doesn’t apply because Cameron Slater didn’t argue a defence of “honest opinion on a matter of public interest.”
Notwithstanding that Blackie should not even be hearing the application by Blomfield, the syllogism seems contraindicative. It is well settled that a defence of honest opinion no longer requires that the comment be on a matter of public interest.
Slater pleaded honest opinion and that invokes the Rule Blackie decided didn’t apply. The inexplicable number of black marks are beginning to explain this judges Sir name.
Blackie does not comment on “the Newspaper rule” that allows media defamation defendants the implicit right to refuse to disclose sources prior to trial – but in the end LF feels that no matter what Slater tried to argue, not that he could have done so eloquently or with force, Blackie was always going to try and fuck Slater, not because Slater is particularly Blackies target.
No LF suggests that Blackie has acted inappropriately with a far more nefarious agenda in mind. That being to enable the wholesale attack of bloggers on a different set of rules to that of the Courts favoured media. The media that plays the game that Judges play in New Zealand. An inimical game of corruption, and/or concealing corruption.
What the Courts of New Zealand, and likely the rest of the World, are missing is that those that communicate to the global web are beginning to see the judges as being nude intellectual emperors that demand respect, not because of their abilities or independence, because both no longer remain present to be seen, but because “their word is law”.
“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the Emperor remains an Emperor”
But the world is changing and half-wit despots, such as New Zealand Judges that think they have no boundaries by, as Blackie has done, finding himself able to make an order that only a superior officer can do, likely proves an inappropriate motive, rather than incompetence.
This is a civil case not a criminal case, and it relates to an alleged defamation, where the plaintiff obviously has insufficient evidence to plead his allegations, and faces the likelihood of an application to strike out unless a fishing expedition finds something inappropriate enough to found “malice”. Blackie could have found that he did not have jurisdiction to make that finding, and if there remained insufficient evidence to found defamation, struck out Blomfields claim.
It would then be Blomfields right to appeal Blackies ruling to the High Court to have it reversed relating to the part about Slater being subject to protection from normal rules of subpoena or discovery. Section 72 of the District Court Act 1947 provides;
72 General right of appeal
(1) This subsection applies to every decision made by a District Court other than a decision of a kind in respect of which an enactment other than this Act—
(a) expressly confers a right of appeal; or
(b) provides expressly that there is no right of appeal.
(2) A party to proceedings in a District Court may appeal to the High Court against the whole or any part of any decision to which subsection (1) applies made by the District Court in or in relation to the proceedings.
In law, malice is the intent, with a premeditated lack of justification, to commit to acts that are wrongful, and likely to directly cause harm to another known person. In defamation malice would be established by proving an obvious disregard by Slater to check the veracity of information given to him by his “sources”.
LF believes that such an appeal would be of no interest to a High Court Judge. When you come to Court with a defamation writ, you play by the rules as everyone else does. Slater acted to secure information offering confidentiality. The alleged claims by impecunious Blomfield, a man that cannot pay his debts, whilst alleging that he is gods gift to marketing and business, cannot amount to substantive force to have a High Court Judge rule that the threshold has been surpassed, otherwise why have the inclusion of the exclusion in the first place.
The level of malice involved, and what consequential level of harm caused to Mr Blomfield must be prima facie established in the pleadings, and the pleadings, subject to Court approval, may be changed on occasion.
In merely reporting the content of documents that are embarrassing to a known person [Blomfield] Slater is acting as a low rent story making journo, much like the bulk of mainstream media.
Slater has broken numerous investigative stories, as has done Ian Wishart over the years. Slater has been the Editor in Chief of Fairfaxs tabloid shite sheet and prostitute advertising rag “The Truth” just before it failed, but to be fair to Slater, he was the one-man pallbearer of another media icon destroyed by the influence of the likes of Paul Thompson, the man that decided what type of media should be sold to the masses.
Malice is found in the words used, and if the evidence is in emails sent by another to an entity that is involved in reporting information by way of dissemination to thousands of other persons directly and indirectly, the reporting of that information in that manner fulfills all requirements that the information was disclosed by a media source. The fact that the dissemination of the information includes commentary further proves the status of media.
To put it bluntly Blackie could make the same decision against the likes of Wikileaks, which would defeat the very purpose of the media. That is why the Act specifically requires that only a High Court Judge can consider such an application.
The arrest of the heads of Murdoch media for all sorts of heinous criminal activity in order to fabricate stories means that they surely could not be described as being media.
It is clear that New Zealand media, but especially the major players, deliver the news in a manner that is far from truthful or dispassionate, and frequently is merely the wishes of their masters – those that advertise with them and those that politically represent the interests of those advertise them.
The test for media status is fairly simple if common sense is applied. Does the natural or legal person claiming such status, have a record of reporting and commentating on matters that concern them, and a target audience.
Clearly Slater surpasses this threshold with ease. Clearly judge Blackies decision is in want of jurisdiction, and does not in law actually exist. Judge Gittos’s decision effectively appearing to recognize that Judge Blackies decision is binding on Slater, subject to appeal, is again in want of jurisdiction. Slater could also write to the Chief Judge of the District Court asking him or her to intervene to at least indicate if the District Court had jurisdiction relating to the Act, which clearly states it does not.
Finally the appeal to the High Court may only be that Blackie did not have jurisdiction and that therefore no judgment exists that can be appealed. Now that would be fucking embarrassing, but to be frank to be expected from the low rent judges of the New Zealand Courts. If Blomfield wants to make such an application under section 68 of the Evidence Act 2006 he has likely filed his pleadings in the wrong jurisdiction.
If that is the case then Slater should seek that the Solicitor General commence proceedings to have Blomfield declared in part or whole a vexatious litigant, unless he is represented by competent counsel, and can pay into court security for full solicitor client costs prior to the Court accepting the proceeding.
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3 Comments
The corruption never ceases to amaze me. How can Transparency International continue to rank New Zealand as the world’s most transparent country? It is because the New Zealand government agencies finance the Transparency International chapter in New Zealand to make New Zealand out to be a paragon of virtue.
New Zealand is Fiji masquerading as Finland. Judges in New Zealand routinely ignore the law. Having briefly litigated two cases in New Zealand, I can assure anyone that the law and facts are irrelevant in New Zealand courts. New Zealand is not a nation of laws, but rather, a nation of men that make up the law as they go along.
Having read SafeFromNewZealand’s other posting I can only assume that climate change denying imbecile is a little misguided. Mate, you know so very little. Please sit down because you ignorance is overpowering the chip on your shoulder.
Perhaps you should explain exactly what is you’re trying to get at CampbellD. It seems to us that your comment serves only as an attempt to ridicule SafeFromNewZealand (SFNZ), was that your intention? Or had you hoped to convey something more meaningful or useful than that? What exactly is it that SFNZ knows very little about? Where’s the ignorance or for that matter the chip on his/her shoulder? Please, next time, present an argument that is a little more convincing.