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Did the Crown breach the suppression order in the Ureweras case?
By Steven | September 7, 2011
The Crown tells us that as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Urewera case,
there is no longer sufficient evidence to justify the continuation of the proceedings against a number of those charged solely under the Arms Act…
That is, the Crown has revealed that the Supreme Court has ruled some evidence inadmissible. That’s a breach of the suppression order imposed by the Supreme Court. But it’s worse than that. The impression we are left with is that evidence was excluded concerning the remaining four defendants (although there’s still enough admissible evidence against them to continue the prosecution).
In fact, that’s very misleading.
The Supreme Court is yet to rule on whether this case will go a jury. In the light of the dropped prosecutions, we might suppose that the forthcoming trial is likely to be shorter and less complicated, which may dissolve many of the old objections to a jury trial. It can only be assumed that a jury trial is a real possibility now. If there is one, hasn’t the Crown just created a danger that jurors will roll up wrongly thinking that some information suggesting the defendants’ guilt is being kept from them?
Topics: Contempt of Court, Suppression orders | Comments Off on Did the Crown breach the suppression order in the Ureweras case?