Generally the NZCCL does not advocate censorship. Where possible, we believe, people should be free to make up their own minds what to read, and that the process of banning inhibits the free exchange of ideas.

The fact that a book advocates something that is against the law is not a good argument for banning it. Indeed the only way that our justice and legal systems may change is through challenge to them. So books that advocate the death penalty, the legalisation of marjijuana or the abolition of prisons may be raising legitimate debate about fundamental decisions that have informed our legal system for many years.

Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill

It seems strange that in this society that values so much the rule of law, and one where other government departments must keep stringently to their legal mandate, the New Zealand Police are able to stretch the law to suit themselves, and then require retrospective legislation to legalise their actions.

The police may state that they believed they were working inside the law. However they must have known that that was not the case – papers produced in 2010 to clarify the Search and Surveillance legislation indicated then that in part the Bill was to mandate actions the police had assumed without legal support.

When the government in its efficiency drive gets around to reorganising the Charities Commission, we hope that it will adopt a definition of charity that is more contemporary than the purpose currently in our 2005 New Zealand Charities Act, namely: “every charitable purpose, whether it relates to the relief of poverty, the advancement of education or religion, or any other matter beneficial to the community.” This purpose was derived from the English 1601 Charitable Purposes Act, in a society where poverty was regarded as a crime, there was no public schooling, and no health or welfare system.

MyFone.mobi is a device that enables people to view both the traffic and the content of texts from other people's phones. Promoted as a way of parents keeping their children safe by alerting them to any phone bullying or other problems, it is actually a process whereby parents can track their children  wherever they go and whatever they do. Of course the device can have much greater consequences as well. It can be used for husbands to spy on wives or for bosses to snoop on their staff. We do not know what safeguards actually exist to prevent the device being used by other people wishing to tap into a person's private messages. In the Close-up item on the night of Wednesday 23 March it appeared that it required the consent of the cellphone user. However there was no elaboration about how that consent was to be obtained or whether it was actually required to operate the device.

The argument that the device will only be used to prevent school bullying is naive in the extreme. As there can be no control over who may use it or the purposes to which it may be put, it is more likely to be used as a control process to limit the freedom of expression and movement of the person been snooped on. This is uncomfortably close to the bullying behaviour it purports to eliminate.

Besides, is it not illegal under Part 9A of the Crimes Act 1961: Crimes against personal privacy?

For news comment and NZCCL response view http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/4805461/Worrying-product-snoops-on-childrens-phone-calls

One of the more intriguing inquiries received by NZCCL has been about council requirements for ratepayers to mow their lawns, often accompanied by threats of fines of up to $5000 if they fail to comply.  The reasons given by the councils are usually relating to 'fire risk' or 'encouraging rats', both of which could possibly be regarded as hazards, were it not that there is little evidence that long lawns do either of those things.  Indeed the 'fire risk' excuse has been used against the owner of a house that had already been burned down by arson, and next door to a field of dry hay (which might have posed a greater risk), and the 'rat' excuse has been used by a council that itself failed to clear or keep tidy land that it owned itself just down the road.

I surmise that councils do not have any ability to intercede in ratepayers' private property ownership, except if they are carrying out illegal activity, causing a nuisance (for instance if neighbours persistently complain), or if it is a health or safety issue.  Councils use the health and safety issue, but really need to justify their use of it in these circumstances. There will be little evidence that long lawns either increase rats or create fires.

It is a different matter if a person is a council (or private) tenant.  Then there is usually in the agreement a clause about tenants' obligations to maintain the property. It is explicit in one of the tenancy documents I saw.

The only other possibility is that the council makes lawn maintenance a condition of the development of the property or properties, in which case rate-payers should have specific notice to that effect.

And what about this from Christchurch:

Wellington, Feb 3 NZPA - The Christchurch City Council has admitted it stuffed up when it threatened 11 home owners with fines of up to $5000 for not mowing their lawns, even though their houses were rendered uninhabitable by last year's massive earthquake.

The council sent a letter to residents in the suburbs of Avonside and Dallington reminding them to keep the grass below 100mm, or the council would have it done and bill them, Campbell Live reported.

The quake-damaged houses are condemned but the owners are still paying mortgages and rent to live elsewhere.

Resident Gary Johnson said the notice was unbelievable. He was disgusted at the blunt letter, considering what they had been through.

He had tried mowing his lawn but it was difficult as it was riddled with large cracks. Some residents said they did not have time or money to spend on houses which should be destroyed.

Council inspection and enforcement manager Gary Lennan said the notices had to go out because of the fire hazard, but admitted the process was wrong. "We messed up and we need to do something about it."

The residents were in a special situation and the council could have been more sympathetic. They would be speaking to the owners to see what could be done to help, he said.

The NZ Council for Civil Liberties is gratified that the High Court has ruled that the law banning gang insignia from Whanganui was unlawful and invalid. The bylaw required an enabling act of parliament that was passed only through a deal with two ACT party members, and was passed without consideration of civil liberties or even of its legal implications. Not only that, but by making the law apply to large areas of Whanganui, including arterial roads not owned by the council, the Whanganui Council far exceeded the scope of the Act, which required that specified restricted areas only could be covered.

These were the grounds we identified in 2009.

1. Definitions

There are no clear guidelines as to how to determine what constitutes a “pattern of criminal activity” or “intimidation and harassment”. “Criminal activity” may include the occupation of Motua Gardens/Pakaitore, or other protest activity. It may be an assumption that criminal activity is being conducted, but without any proof of criminal activity through court convictions. Similarly with intimidation or harassment. Some people might view a black power member taking a child to school as intimidatory. Other people might regard a police officer as being intimidatory. There is no defence for gang members to argue that intimidation or harassment was not likely to take place.

2. Proper place of the criminal law

The proper role of the criminal law is to criminalise behaviour which harms people. Wearing gang insignia is not harmful in itself. If or when gangs or their members are involved in criminal behaviour they should be prosecuted. Prosecutions should be based on evidence of harm, rather than assumptions of intimidation or harassment.

3. Freedom of expression

NZCCL believes that a dangerous precedent is set if people are restricted in their ability to wear whatever clothes they like. This rule applies equally to women wearing trousers in the Sudan, or the burqa in New Zealand, as it does to people wearing gang insignia. This legislation regarding the wearing of gang insignia legalises a form of harassment by the Wanganui District Council and the police of people who are otherwise acting within the law, on the pretext that they show they belong to a named organisation.

4. The council’s definition of ‘specified places’

In the Bylaw the map of ‘specified places’ includes the entire urban area, as well as a number of halls, parks and reserves and other public places outside the urban area, as suggested by the police. It also includes State Highway 3 and other arterial routes. This broad specified area would seem to be in conflict with the Act, which states that the effect of the Act must not be that all the public places in the district are specified places. The Wanganui District Council map includes all the Whanganui urban area, even though Council press releases generally refer only to the CBD.

5. Freedom of passage

Because of the broad scope of the ban, it would seem to prevent freedom of passage on the open road. It permits police to stop and search vehicles in passage through Whanganui, on suspicion of their being gang members even where there is no question of intimidation or violence involved.

6. Potential for abuse

Because there are no clear guidelines as to who is or is not covered under the definitions of ‘gang’, ‘criminal activity’, ‘intimidation’ or ‘insignia’ it is entirely possible for the Wanganui District Council to extend the scope of the Bylaw to include protest groups or other organisations it wishes to suppress. Similar legislation has been used overseas to restrict the activities of environmental and human rights groups.

It is now time for the Whanganui Council to undertake proper dialogue and negotiation with the local gangs with a view to positive and cooperative solutions to the perceived problems. Perhaps the council could receive advice from the Mayor of Invercargill, Tim Shadbolt. In the 1960s Mr Shadbolt was still a student at Auckland University, yet he negotiated a truce between gangs in Auckland, when the confrontational approach of the police and the council had resulted in gang warfare.

NZCCL urges the Wanganui District Council to initiate dialogue with the different gangs in the city, with a view to obtaining from the gangs an agreement to refrain from intimidatory behaviour in public places. Such a dialogue may lead to a positive relationship with the gangs that may reduce crime and violence within the city.

The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties is alarmed and dismayed that a bunch of business people can think they have the right to determine whether and which people can be stopped from using a public right of way adjacent to their shops. They plan to buy or lease the land from the council so that they can issue trespass notices to any ‘riff-raff’ that might congregate there.

While the NZCCL has some sympathy with the retailers, other solutions need to be found that do not themselves circumvent the law and people’s rights.

There are many questions regarding the rights of private interests over rights of the public.

1.                  If any person is breaking the law, then it is the role of the police to intervene. What is intended here is for private people to have the right to intervene even when nobody is breaking any law. And to intervene using their private security staff.

2.                  Councils have limited rights to restrict access to certain places – but these need to have public scrutiny and regulation (for instance in the case of liquor bans) or even enabling national legislation (in the case of gang regalia). In any of those cases there are clear determinations about the specific behaviours that are not permitted. No council is permitted to ban people who are acting lawfully, even where people may object to that behaviour.

3.                  That business people can by sleight of hand turn themselves into the moral guardians of our public places is unconscionable.  Trespass orders may be given on any grounds at all determined by the businesses.  The purchase or lease of the land can then be seen as a way to circumvent the legal safeguards placed upon the rights of individuals, and so render the law itself in disrepute.

4.                  The fact that the meeting to discuss the issue is not open to the public is in itself an affront to legal process.  All cases where councils have placed limits on people’s rights have been subject to wide public scrutiny and comment.  As Catherine Place is a public space it is owned by the public (through the council) and the public have every right to be involved in decisions about its future. Any process to limit public scrutiny shows an arrogant disregard for people’s rights. There is a strange irony that the people who are set on this path are doing it in the name of the public they exclude from their discussions.

5.                  The concept of ‘public space’ is an important affirmation of our democracy.  It is a space where all people can go and behave how they like as long as it is within the law.  There are no moral guardians there, specifying who is respectable and who is ‘riff-raff’. If local business people were permitted to privatise public spaces so that they are the ones that determine who may or may not go there, then we are in danger of changing our democracy into a ‘meritocracy’ where those with power and influence determine acceptable and unacceptable public behaviours.

We create our ‘riff-raffs’.  We have created a society where many people are marginalised, without jobs and without meaning to our lives.  A much more positive and rewarding solution to the problem created by symbols of affluence, such as shopping malls, in areas of poverty, may be for the shop owners to engage the people they have dismissed as ‘riff-raff’ in discussion about what their aspirations might be.  They might consider employing some of them.  That might be a simpler and more cost-effective solution. 

They may then find that there is not much difference between ‘riff-raff’ and respectable people like you and me.

See Stephen Forbes article at

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/western-leader/4558617/Tackling-the-riff-raff

$91,000 it takes to keep a man in prison.  I wonder what else could be done with that money.

Hugh Price, who died on 28 December 2009, is best known and recognised for his contributions to writing, publishing and education over more than fifty years.  For these accomplishments Hugh received the NZ Order of Merit and a D.Litt (honoris causa) from Victoria University.

That was the public face of this unassuming and quietly spoken man. What is less well-known is his lifelong commitment to human rights and civil liberties.  He played active roles in campaigns against the death penalty, as well as in promotion of the rights of women, gays, the elderly, and other minority groups, both in New Zealand and internationally.  He abhorred secrecy in all its forms, whether it related to selective reporting by the press or the workings of government.  His clear and unequivocal principles were expressed through every facet of his life.