Road Warrior of the Week: Judith Collins

 Comments Off on Road Warrior of the Week: Judith Collins
Dec 172012
 

The Honourable Judith Collins, New Zealand’s Justice Minister (AKA “Crusher Collins”), blazed onto the RoadKill Radio highway when she very publicly and brazenly outed former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie for a judicially flawed report. Unlike Canadian wimpy politicians, lawyer-cum-Justice Minister cried legal foul after paying Binnie a reported $400K to review an alleged wrongful conviction in one of New Zealand’s most controversial murder cases. The Minister didn’t mince words in her media release about the calibre of Binnie’s report. She bluntly and matter-of-factly stated:

“My concerns are broadly that the report appeared to contain assumptions based on incorrect facts, and showed a misunderstanding of New Zealand law. It lacked a robustness of reasoning used to justify its conclusions.”

Bravo to an Minister Collins, an elected official who is willing expose judges whose robes are tattered and shredded by wrong-doing! All RKR wants for Christmas is a Justice Minister with the same ballsy equipment – horse power – as New Zealand’s!

‘Drive for Justice’ Simpson v. Mair Judge Blasted by NZ Government Over ‘Flawed Report’

 Comments Off on ‘Drive for Justice’ Simpson v. Mair Judge Blasted by NZ Government Over ‘Flawed Report’
Dec 152012
 

RoadKill Radio News: Mr. Justice Ian Binnie, the former Supreme Court of Canada judge who wrote the controversial decision in the landmark defamation case of WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, is now facing the same charges of flawed reasoning, assumed facts, and lack of legal knowledge in a New Zealand case.

Last year, retired SCC Justice Binnie was paid nearly NZ$414,000 (about C$345,000) to review a demand for compensation by a New Zealand man whose conviction of murdering his parents and three siblings was overturned after 13 years.

In his review, Judge Binnie recommended compensation, reportedly as high as NZ$2 million (C$1.67 million), a review that New Zealand Justice Minister Judith Collins characterized as containing “… assumptions based on incorrect facts.” Collins said the review “… lacked a robustness of reasoning … to justify its conclusions.”

Kari Simpson, one of the litigants in the controversial case that went before the Supreme Court of Canada, wasn’t surprised by the public outing of now retired Justice Binnie by New Zealand Justice Minister Judith Collins.  Simpson wrote earlier today to Minister Collins to inform her that Justice Binnie has previous engaged in similar judicial deficiencies that include writing a decision that is “fraught with unsupported findings of fact, lies treated as facts, manufactured evidence.

Simpson said, “… the New Zealand government has experienced exactly the same corruption of the rule of law as I’ve pointed out to our Prime Minister, the Justice Minister and the Canadian Judicial Council, and how this sort of misconduct brings the judicial system into disrepute. This scandal bolsters the merits of my complaint.”

Simpson continued, “Perhaps if the Prime Minister, Justice Minister and the Canadian Judicial Council had acted on the red flags I raised, New Zealand could have saved itself nearly half a million dollars.”

A formal complaint naming Justice Binnie et al by Kari Simpson to the Canadian Judicial Council is pending

-30-

(Photo of Retired SCC Justice Ian Binnie by Paul Mayne, Western News)

RoadKill Radio News: Judge Who Wrote Decision in ‘Drive for Justice’ Simpson v Mair Case is Blasted by NZ Government Over ‘Flawed Report’

 2 Responses »
Dec 152012
 

A former Supreme Court of Canada judge is in hot water in New Zealand over what the Justice Minister there calls “a flawed report”.

It’s the same judge who, while sitting on the Canadian Supreme Court bench, wrote the decision in Kari Simpson’s defamation lawsuit—the scandalous case that forms the basis of RoadKill Radio’s Drive for Justice Internet webcast series.

In the Canadian trial, Mr. Justice Ian Binnie accepted as “fact” statements that were provably false, and for which no evidence was presented to the court. Further, the high court decision repeated those lies as though they were true, thus further slandering Mrs. Simpson.

Last year, retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie was paid nearly NZ$414,000 (about C$345,000) to review a demand for compensation by a New Zealand man who had served 13 years in jail after being convicted of murdering five members of his own family—his parents and three siblings. His conviction was later overturned.

In his review, Judge Binnie recommended compensation. State broadcaster TVNZ reported that David Bain could be in line for a payout of up to NZ$2 million (C$1.67 million).

But the New Zealand Justice Minister, Judith Collins, sent the Binnie Report to a New Zealand QC for “peer review”; that review found that Judge Binnie had “exceeded his mandate”, and that:

• “…the principles to be applied to an inquiry of this kind… have been misunderstood in the Binnie Report; and … in consequence it would be unsafe to act upon the Binnie Report.”

• “Those errors have been compounded by the publicity given to … matters which ought to have been for Cabinet alone… “

• “Binnie J made fundamental errors of principle.”

• “The correct principles should now be applied to the evidence afresh.”

• “Binnie J criticised named individuals without giving them adequate opportunity to respond…” and

• the Binnie Report is vulnerable to judicial review.”

“…the report appeared to contain assumptions based on incorrect facts,” Collins said in a Dec. 11 press release, “It lacked a robustness of reasoning … to justify its conclusions.”

In a statement e-mailed to the magazine Canadian Lawyer, Judge Binnie, who is currently in Switzerland, called Collins’ news release a “political document.”

But Collins says she had raised concerns about Binnie’s report when she met with the former judge in September, and told him it would be peer reviewed.

“I also advised Justice Binnie the report must remain confidential, and it would be premature to release it until after Cabinet had made a decision on Mr. Bain’s claim,” she wrote in her statement.

“Since then, I have received from Justice Binnie, unsolicited, two further versions of his report.”

Interviewed at her office in Langley, BC, Kari Simpson said, “I’m happy to learn that the New Zealand government has experienced exactly the same corruption of the rule of law as I’ve pointed out to our Prime Minister, the Justice Minister and the Canadian Judicial Council, and how this sort of misconduct brings the judicial system into disrepute. This scandal bolsters the merits of my complaint.”

“This goes far beyond either David Bains’ case or mine,” she continued. “This reveals how the legal fraternity covers for its own, and yet another example of why the so-called ‘justice system’ in Canada urgently needs a public inquiry.

“Perhaps if the Prime Minister, Justice Minister and the CJC had acted on the red flags I raised, New Zealand could have saved itself nearly half a million dollars.”

Simpson has sent a letter to NZ Justice Minister Judith Collins, pointing out that “while on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Justice Binnie wrote a decision that is fraught with unsupported findings of fact, lies treated as ‘facts’, manufactured evidence and… contextual chicanery.”

Click here to read Kari Simpson’s full correspondence to the NZ Justice Minister.

(Photo of Retired SCC Justice Ian Binnie by Paul Mayne, Western News)

 

To NZ Justice Minister Judith Collins re Retired “Justice” Ian Binnie

 1 Response »
Dec 152012
 

Dear Madame Minister:

I have recently been apprised of a legal conundrum involving Mr. Justice Ian Binnie.  I understand that Justice Binnie was paid a reported $400k by the New Zealand government to investigate a matter related to a claim for compensation for an alleged wrongful conviction and incarceration of a man named David Cullen Bain.

You should be advised that retired Justice Binnie is also at the centre of a somewhat parallel legal scandal here in Canada, for reasons of similar to the concern you expressed your news release about Mr. Justice Binnie’s recommendations. Specifically:

“My concerns are broadly that the report appeared to contain assumptions based on incorrect facts, and showed a misunderstanding of New Zealand law. It lacked a robustness of reasoning used to justify its conclusions.”

In a precedent-setting defamation case here in Canada (WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, 2008 SCC 40), while on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada, Mr. Justice Binnie wrote a decision that is fraught with unsupported findings of fact, lies treated as “facts”, manufactured evidence and contextual chicanery.

Justice Binnie didn’t stop there.  He also exceeded his lawful jurisdiction, attempting to justify irrational reasoning by adopting a new “modified” test for defamation, previously unknown to the litigants, and based on a “Binnie enhanced” minority dissent in another, and dissimilar, case. In Canada, as I am sure is also true in New Zealand, litigants have the right to know the legal test they must meet. Therefore, by changing the test for defamation without informing the parties involved, Mr. Justice Binnie acted without legal authority—i.e., unlawfully.

The matter to which I refer is now the subject of a growing controversy, as Justice Binnie and other judges find themselves at the centre of a scandal that has put a spotlight on how the “justice” system in Canada monitors or polices our judges—or fails to do so.

The current justice system in Canada is broken. Judicial Independence—that is, the theory that judges can monitor themselves—has clearly failed. Political and civilian oversight is an essential remedy to the problems within the Canadian judicial arena.

I have also been informed about Justice Binnie’s public retort to your response to his report. I am certain that his reference to your “political document” has no more merit as his findings.  It is well-known here that the hierarchy of Canada’s judiciary clearly fears political (i.e., public) scrutiny, and attempts to thwart accountability by incorporating the word “political” when attempting to deflect well-warranted criticism.  The “P-word”, in certain Canadian legal cabals, is used as a slur; but for civil citizens, it brings hope that elected officials—like you—will exercise the authority and mandate with which we have entrusted them.

For your information, I am including a letter I wrote to Canada’s Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, summarizing the facts of the case to which I refer—a case in which I am a party; and a Summary Brief follows my letter to the PM. The problems related therein will give you some insight into the corruption that exists within our Canadian courts, and the scandalous games that are being played there. Games in which Justice Ian Binnie likes to engage, as you now know full well.

If you are in need of more information please feel free to contact me.

Kari D. Simpson

Telephone: 604-514-1614
Email: KariSimpson@telus.net
Website: DriveforJustice.com
Host: RoadKill Radio.com

To:

The Hon. Judith Collins, Justice Minister
The Vogel Centre
19 Aiken Street
Wellington, New Zealand
SX 10088

Via Post & Email

 

Canada’s Courts Are Sick

 3 Responses »
Mar 242012
 

Canada’s courts are sick.

But there is a cure, and YOU are part of it.

Let me describe the problem, and then I’ll tell you how you can be part of the solution.

Back in 1979, Prime Minister Trudeau asked the Supreme Court of Canada to define Canada’s Constitution. The judges answered that there are two equally-important parts to the Constitution: the written document, and the body of tradition that we inherited from Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

That body of tradition says that in a constitutional monarchy, all government action is in the name of the Crown, but the Crown has no direct role: everything is done through the three branches of government: the elected legislature makes the laws; the Cabinet administers the laws through the civil service; and the courts settle disputes according to the law as they find it written.

That last phrase is important. Judges interpret law, but they don’t make law.

However, in 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was embedded in our new Constitution, and that made judges the final arbiters of the law.

It wasn’t always that way.

Back in 1929, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons” under the law. Five spunky ladies from Alberta challenged that ruling, taking it to the Privy Council in England. The Privy Council overruled the high court and declared that women are, indeed, persons.

But in 1947, with the Citizenship Act, Canadians lost the right to appeal to the Privy Council. That Act and the Charter, together, left the judiciary supreme. Since 1982, judges—and especially the ermine-clad masters of the Supreme Court—have become increasingly activist. And example is the recent ruling in a Quebec case that denies parents’ right to determine their children’s education. That ruling violates the decision by Canada’s Parliament to sign the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly affirms those rights in Article 26, Section 3.

The Supreme Court doesn’t care. In fact, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, in a speech in New Zealand to a world convention of judges, urged judges world-wide to rely on their own judgement, rather than on laws or constitutions.

Whoa! That sent up warning flags.

So what’s the solution?

Parliament has to create a Standing Committee on the Judiciary, and give it the power to examine any court ruling, on the sole ground of its conformity to the constitution. If the committee decides a particular court decision looks unconstitutional, it would bring a Bill into Parliament to change that decision. That would make the courts accountable to the Standing Committee for conforming to the Constitution; the Committee is accountable to Parliament; and Parliament is accountable to the electorate.

This is where YOU come in: you have to write to your Member of Parliament, tell them the courts are out of control, and DEMAND that Parliament create the Standing Committee on the Judiciary.

Now the ball is in your court—the court that has final authority inn a democracy.

The Ill Effects of ‘Progressive’ Government Social Policies

 Comments Off on The Ill Effects of ‘Progressive’ Government Social Policies
May 102011
 

Join Terry O’Neill & Kari Simpson!

Show #100 Part 1

Download Show #100 Part 1

7:30 – 8:15 pm: DAVE QUIST, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada joins us. Subject? The big conference – Transforming the Way Canadians Think about Family. Specifically, we talk about the sobering reports from two of the speakers – one from New Zealand, the other from Sweden – who warned of the ill effects of ‘progressive’ government social policies.