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Dotcom's doom

It seems that the courts have done an about-face over the lawfulness of search warrants used to raid Kim Dotcom's mansion.

The original high court decision (made by Judge Helen Winkelmann) had ruled that the warrant was insufficiently specific and therefore not valid. The Court of Appeal has reversed that judgment by saying that although there were "defects" in the warrants, those defects were not sufficient to render them invalid.

Of course now the matter is almost certainly going to be appealed to the Supreme Court and, since there still appears to be significant subjectivity surrounding which side of the line the warrants fell, I wouldn't be taking any bets as to the final outcome.

One interesting aspect of the Court of Appeal ruling however, is the issue of costs.

The court has ruled that Kim Dotcom must pay 60% of the prosecution's costs.

What the?

How on earth can a defendant be stung for 60% of the costs of an action he did not bring?

It wasn't Kim Dotcom who filed the appeal -- it was the crown!

Surely, in a case such as this, each party should bear the full amount of their own costs.

I think the government now also faces a very real image problem in respect to this case.

While many people aren't exactly Kim Dotcom fans... it is beginning to look as if a fairly significant proportion of even this group are beginning to smell a rat in respect to the way this case has been handled.

One can't even help but wondering if Kim Dotcom has become a "back room" chip in the highly secretive game that is the TPPA negotiations.

The whole KD case has been one stuff-up after another, and the disingenuous responses of the Prime Minister in respect to his awareness of certain facts does nothing to create a public perception that everything is "above board".

While I can see many of the merits of the alleged case against KD, I have absolutely no tolerance of any government, police or justice system that repeatedly fails to follow its own rules and the law when carrying out its duties in such a case.

At some stage we have to say "stop!" and cry foul.

In the case of this many fouls, I think it fair that those guilty of abusing their power and failing to honour their obligations to use their power appropriately are sanctioned.

The Court of Appeal has said that the defects in the warrants were "in form, not substance".

Try that justification if you ever stuff-up your GST or income-tax return and make an honest mistake that sees you underpaying your obligation. How far do you think it would get you?

Or do we (yet again) have two sets of standards in NZ?

I'm sorry, but that just is not good enough.

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(Sorry, forums are stuffed at present)

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