Name and shame

Two recent homicide cases involving children have sparked calls to end the right to silence; statements in a recent media item reveal an investigation spanning 2004 to the present, carrying the names of 12 children whose killers have never been brought to justice.

The right to silence is enshrined in the Bill of Rights Act. Like most countries in the Western world, New Zealand authorities can’t compel people to talk, “Aside from a few exceptions, we all have — all the time — a right to silence,

Yet I know of no law which prevents the police publicly naming the persons of interest relevant to each case, completely acknowledging the public shame this will bring to the family, the culture, the tribe, whatever is appropriate to each case.

Thus family peer, tribal, or cultural pressure is brought to bear on the individual responsible, leaving one of two options: to remove the abhorrent stain on the community concerned: or to reveal or to ostracise the miscreant. Either action brings the perpetrator into the light

Paul Evans- McLeod, Hamilton.