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Solicitor-General withdraws controversial prosecution guidelines following public outcry

Prosecution guidelines news

Solicitor-General Una Jagose KC has withdrawn newly released prosecution guidelines, which aimed to address the “disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on Māori”, following significant public criticism.

The guidelines encouraged judges and lawyers to consider how their decisions might contribute to the overrepresentation of Māori as both victims and defendants.

However, after observing public confusion and concern, Jagose acknowledged the guidelines “missed the mark” and vowed to revise them for clarity.

The updated version is expected to be republished in time to take effect on January 1, 2025.

The guidelines faced opposition from lobby group Hobson’s Pledge, which argued they created an unequal legal system by factoring ethnicity into prosecution decisions.

However, legal experts, such as Wellington-based barrister Julia Spelman, told state media that the guidelines were simply “best practice” recommendations and not binding on prosecutors.

Spelman emphasised that they are meant to guide a wide range of prosecutors and are not enforceable rules, aiming to improve fairness without introducing a “separatist system.”

Image credit: Tingey Injury Law Firm

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5 COMMENTS

  1. If the “guidelines” are non-binding and totally won’t affect anything and totally won’t influence prosecutors or judges, why bother writing them in the first place?

    Best way to avoid being “overrepresented” in crime stats is to stop committing crime.

  2. “aiming to improve fairness” … “best practice guidelines”
    Okay..Where’s the evidence of “usual practice?” Ahh yes, the rates of incarceration and criminal guilt that appear indexed to particular ethnicity.
    And the fix?
    Globalist DIE ideology…more division, inequality and exclusion in the name of “equity” that takes socialist equality and turns it into a bizarre neo-Marxist social hierarchy predicated on ‘oppression’.
    Really?
    The un-ending billions of ‘settlement’ $ place the recipients at the apex of the hierarchy, together with the endless indoctrination about ‘cultural’ safety’, the mass imposition of a manufactured language of little interest and utility, the promotion of a basic tribalistic culture as the antidote to thousands of years of cultural knowledge?
    No, this is the champagne socialists and latté swilling institutional ‘academic’ approved method of ASSUAGING their own greed and guilt emerging from, “do what I say, not what I do.”

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