Corrections got it wrong
The spin avoids having to hold anyone to account.
We don’t like paying money to wife-beaters, rapists and other thugs. We don’t like retrospective legislation. We don’t like governments imprisoning citizens unlawfully.
But Prime Minister John Key must pick his Government’s way through these “don’t likes”.
The Supreme Court has ruled the Department of Corrections has kept prisoners unlawfully locked up. It appears hundreds are adversely affected. Many were unlawfully detained for months.
There’s no quirk or loophole. Corrections quite simply got it wrong. And its wrong-headedness was backed by the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
It took the Supreme Court to point out the law as it’s written and intended, fix the anomalies, and re-apply the New Zealand Bill of Rights.
No one has put their hand up or been held to account for the unlawful detention of hundreds of citizens. If anything, the Prime Minister has pinned the blame on the Supreme Court, declaring the decision “out of left field”. That’s nonsense. The only thing out of left field has been the misreading of Parliament’s clear instruction by Corrections, the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
And now the Prime Minister is out of left field in backing Corrections when the department was so egregiously wrong.
The Prime Minister says the Government is considering retrospectively changing the law.
But there’s nothing wrong with the law. It’s logical and clear.
The problem lies entirely with Corrections.
The change-the-law response is political spin to disguise that the Government got it badly wrong.
The spin avoids having to hold anyone to account, and retrospectively relieves taxpayers of having to compensate criminals.
But such a law would mean our Government has unlawfully incarcerated hundreds of citizens without consequence or accountability and, when caught, changed the law to make unlawful incarceration lawful, to dodge all responsibility.
We correctly question countries that unlawfully imprison people.
Making unlawful detention subsequently lawful only deepens the outrage.
It would be a long way for us to fall should John Key drop us down that chute.