Monday, August 27, 2007

And it's called a 'justice' system?

The NZ Herald has a piece about the falling number of protection orders being issued by the courts. It says;

Protection orders

* A court order is aimed at preventing physical, psychological or sexual abuse.

* A temporary "without notice" order can be obtained within 24 hours and comes into force without the abuser being told. They then have 30 days to file a defence. Orders can also be sought "on notice" and are made after a hearing before a judge.

* Police will generally arrest anyone who breaches a protection order, unless there are exceptional circumstances.


Assuming the above is accurate, does anybody see the immediate problem here?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Other than a person could be arrested for breaching an order they know nothing about.

Brian Smaller

Anonymous said...

Brian - the Herald has it wrong. They come in to force the moment the order is served.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Anon, Let me get this straight. No form of protection order is enforceable until the person it is made against is informed?

Anonymous said...

Lindsay - yes.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Lindsay - the idea is that the respondent isn't given time to respond to the charges before the order is made.

There's no point to a protection order the respondent doesn't know about.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

I would have thought not knowing about it would virtually ensure the respondent breaches the order thereby providing the police with a reason to arrest him. That is what went through my mind on reading the initial article.

Anonymous said...

Well, it's not the intent, and the Police have plenty of excuses if they want to arrest someone.