Police ends don’t justify means

It is easy to argue that the ends can justify the means, especially for police, who swear an oath to protect life.

But the significant powers that the public confer on the New Zealand Police must be strictly monitored. What could at first glance appear to be a trivial breach should be taken seriously.

The decision of police officers to target a meeting in Lower Hutt in October 2016 is an example of the force appearing to act in good faith, but ultimately making a flawed decision, trampling on civil rights in the process.

Although police stopped vehicles ostensibly to check for drink-driving, the real reason was to gather the names and addresses of a group whose only possible offence was to attend an entirely peaceful meeting.

That meeting was of Exit International, a group dedicated to providing information and advice on assisted suicide.

Police in Wellington had been instructed by the coroner to conduct an inquiry into the death of an elderly woman, after a toxicology report showed traces of a class-c drug linked to assisted suicide elsewhere.

They were conducting an investigation into a possible crime.

Although the officers involved insist the checkpoint was established ‘‘in the interests of the preservation of life’’, using the cover of road safety legislation in this way was unlawful, as the Independent Police Conduct Authority has now found.

Incredibly, the lawfulness of the activities was not even considered by the officers involved.

Professor Andrew Geddis, from the University of Otago law faculty, has said the stop could amount to a breach of the freedoms of movement and liberty, guaranteed under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Police were in a difficult position. Assisting suicide is a crime in New Zealand.

Although Parliament is considering reform of the law, the outcome is uncertain.

But those at the meeting were to all appearances law-abiding people, mostly elderly women, attending a gathering.

Suggesting they may not be entitled to be there might breach another Bill of Rights freedom, ‘‘to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form’’.

In many parts of the world, the public live with the constant threat of corruption and brutality from their police force in a way we rarely see.

But if the police are allowed to use checkpoints to gather names and addresses of certain individuals, it is only a short walk to other, more serious abuses of powers.

The Exit International episode should not simply be set aside as good intentions getting in the way of good process. This was an illegal use of powers that we reluctantly grant police to protect us.

It is welcome that police have now reminded all staff not to set up checkpoints for reasons other than road safety.

Police bosses should be on notice that if it happens again, they will not be able to simply say they did not consider whether the actions were legal.