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Political Friday (give us all your money)

For many years, the basis of our justice system has been the assumption of innocence -- placing a burden of proof on the state whenever someone is suspected of committing a crime.

This is the way things ought to be because it provides a degree of protection against corruption on the part of those who enforce our laws.

Sadly, this basic tenet of justice has been greatly eroded over the years and we have already reached the point where everyone is assumed of being guilty of something -- unless they can prove otherwise.

The proceeds of crime laws are a great example of this.

Under these laws, the police are entitled to seize any property or cash any one of us owns even if they only have "reasonable grounds to suspect" that that property or cash has been obtained as the result of the commission of a crime or crimes.

In effect, you are assumed to be guilty unless you can prove you're not.

Although the raison d'etre for these laws is laudable, they remove the essential checks and balances that any "just" legal system must employ to protect the innocent.

Here in NZ there have been instances of people having land and assets seized simply because police discovered dope being grown on that land - even though there was no evidence to prove that the land-owner knew of the illegal crop or had in any way benefited from its existence.

That just is not right.

To draw an analogy -- it's somewhat like being sent a speeding ticket that claims you have driven your car in excess of 120Kph some time last month. How do you prove that you didn't? How can you defend a charge like that if there is an assumption of guilt and a burden of proof on the accused to disprove the allegations?

The regular police checkpoints around here require drivers, legitimately going about their lawful business to stop and and, by producing their WOF, drivers and vehicle licensing information, disprove the obvious presumption that they have been driving illegally.

This presumption of guilt now extends far beyond things such as drug and driving crimes -- it now pervades all our communications.

The GCSB, SIS and God knows who else are now constantly monitoring the communications of regular Kiwi folk -- clearly on the presumption that they're doing wrong, planning terrorist acts or simply engaged in things they ought not be.

Totally unacceptable!

Of course the USA leads the way in this destruction of justice and human rights. This CBC News story lifts the covers on US police "shakedowns" which also operate on the presumption of guilt basis and which I have no doubt (given NZ's lapdog status) will become just as commonplace here in this country before long.

We have governments that demand ever-increasing amounts of money from their citizens and if you're going to hand out tax-cuts with one hand, the shortfall must be made up elsewhere.

Despite the denials of those in power, our police *do* operate a ticket-quota programme and we've seen numerous cases where serious crimes of violence are ignored, seemingly in favour of road-traffic policing -- an activity that generates huge revenues. There's no money to be made for the state's coffers in stopping an assault or robbery now, is there?

We now have an election just days away. It behooves each and every one of us to exercise our democratic right in a way that preserves justice and our human rights. Clearly the incumbent government has little respect for either so cast your vote carefully.

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