Unlawful police conduct no surprise
From: October 15th Solidarity
Date: 19 September 2011

'The unanimous decision by the Supreme Court that all of the police video evidence in the Urewera case was illegal should come as no surprise to anyone, least of all the police. It is blatantly obvious that the police never had this power and what it shows is that the police have been willfully disregarding the law for years,' said Valerie Morse, former defendant.

'The Police know very well that they have never had any legal authority to carry out video surveillance. That is why they were trying so hard to get the draconian Search and Surveillance bill passed. That bill would make legal all of the illegal activities the police are already doing and really open the way to an Orwellian Big Brother police apparatus.'

'Anyone with a basic knowledge of the law knows that anything the police do must be authorized by Statute. The Police chief propagandist Greg O'Connor has been spreading falsehoods when he said that police could do anything that wasn't explicitly disallowed by law. In fact, New Zealand law has always maintained that explicit permission is required for any State agency to do anything.'

'The police in this country act as if the law does not apply to them. The fact that they now have 40 cases and 50 operations which may be thrown out because of illegal surveillance should be cause for the government to seriously look at police culture and actions, not change the law to allow them to break it. It is an outrage that John Key is talking about interfering with the Supreme Court. The chief justice makes it clear in her ruling that the government has known for years that the police do not have this power and have been advised to do something about it. They never have. Now that the police have been caught out breaking the law, they government says it will retrospectively change the law. This is exactly what a police state looks and acts like.'

ENDS

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