Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Interim Orders

Justice Mackenzie held a one hour hearing in the High Court this afternoon.

The crown acknowledged there was a serious question of law to be answered. They argued that my only standing was that I owned one of the firearms impacted by the decision. Their argument was that they had given an assurance that they would not prosecute me pending the disposition of the review and accordingly that the reasonable necessity for interim relief was not proved.

I argued that my standing was (1) being a licence holder (2) that I owned one of the firearms impacted (3) I was a member of the public. I then argued that I was unable to exercise the normal rights given by my licence as the police had reclassified many of the firearms I was entitled to prior to the reclassification in accordance with previously issued police approvals. I argued that in terms of my own rifle I was unable to exercise normal rights; for example lending it to another "a-cat" licence holder. I then argued that as a member of the public I was entitled to relief from a police policy decision which would repeat the 1992 fiasco and put 10,000 odd more MSSAs into the hands of criminals and psychopaths. I pointed to the $60,000 dollars in advertising at the tax-payers expense that the police were proposing. I said that the current 'policy' had run for 16 years and the purpose of the 1992 amendments was to prevent any further 'Aramoanas' and that it had. I submitted that there was no disadvantage to the police or general public in stopping the policy and that there was significant consequence for other public and commercial interests if it were to go ahead. I presented a police photo of the weapons from the Napier siege to Justice Mackenzie and told the judge that what the crown was asking, on behalf of the commissioner was for him to be instrumental in potentially arming the criminal underbelly with yet another 10,000 MSSA's similar to what happened in 1992. I told him that this matter begs for interim orders.

Justice Mackenzie said that in his view the Police reinterpretation of the Arms Act is irrelevant and meaningless, that the Police had no statutory power to make a binding interpretation and that any such interpretation was inconsequential.


 

Justice Mackenzie reserved his decision on interim orders. I did my best …. Keep you posted when I get the decision


 

Have a look in "The Truth" newspaper out today!


 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"the Police reinterpretation of the Arms Act is irrelevant and meaningless" - Bloody Golden! Try that on for size Tony Mcleod!?!

Grant said...

Oh man oh man, I read through your post in a state great nervousness wondering what the decision was, waiting for justice to be upheld. At this stage Justice Mackenzie sounds to be quite capable of determining the total lack of legislative basis in the police re-interpretation.

Anonymous said...

so what is happening ? When will we know about the judicial decision ?


Great work ! You are the man !

Anonymous said...

Nice to hear that Justice Mackenzie pointed out that this Superintendent A W McLeod has no capacity on earth to rewrite the law to suit himself,and his reinterpretation was meaningless.

The outcome will be law making in the process either way.

Anonymous said...

Well done.Just the comment of Justice Mackenzie is priceless!!!!

Anonymous said...

This is the only conclusion that Justice Mackenzie could have come to.

Now we sit back and await the nasty bastards at PHQ and the Crown Law Office to spend more of our money trying to screw us over some other way. The unadulterated crap these arrogant civil servants have been slinging (and will continue to sling) at lawful firearms owners is creating a disincentive to remain lawful. refer to www.imas.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2073