Judge Grant Fraser

Judge Grant Fraser is the judge who thinks that 300,000 porno­graphic images help by the con­victed man is on the light side of offend­ing, he also wants the man to con­tinue on his career unin­ter­rupted by this lit­tle scrap with the law and so has sen­tenced him to home deten­tion (so he can con­tinue is per­sonal habit in com­fort) and he also fully sup­pressed his name.

The Man­awatu Stan­dard has come out swing­ing against judi­cial med­dling by judge Grant Fraser.

If there were any lin­ger­ing doubts that the guide­lines for sup­press­ing names in this coun­try needed strength­en­ing, the case detailed in today’s Man­awatu Stan­dard should shat­ter them.

The creep­ing secrecy per­vad­ing our jus­tice sys­tem has long since passed what the pub­lic should accept as a rea­son­able restric­tion on their free­dom of expres­sion in order to safe­guard the admin­is­tra­tion of justice.

The deci­sion to sup­press the name of a promi­nent Man­awatu man con­victed of down­load­ing porno­graphic images of chil­dren is a salient exam­ple of how the prin­ci­ple of open jus­tice has been reduced to lit­tle more than a pass­ing men­tion before a judge abdi­cates his or her duty to ensure our pub­lic court sys­tem belongs to the people.

Judge Grant Fraser’s rea­sons for ban­ning pub­li­ca­tion of this man’s name and occu­pa­tion are breath­tak­ing in their flim­si­ness, plac­ing too much weight on the inter­ests of the offender, and too lit­tle on the inter­ests of the public.

For Judge Fraser to say pub­li­ca­tion of the man’s iden­tity was not required because none of the thou­sands of chil­dren pic­tured were New Zealan­ders is log­i­cally out­ra­geous. Such an argu­ment requires one to believe this man inves­ti­gated the back­ground of each of his young vic­tims to deter­mine they were not from this coun­try. Does Judge Fraser believe that had the man known the chil­dren were New Zealan­ders he would have not down­loaded the images?

But what was most alarm­ing about Judge Fraser’s deci­sion was his view that the offender’s sta­tus in soci­ety should afford him spe­cial pro­tec­tion from publicity.

That is tough stuff and wholly accurate.

Judge Fraser said: “The puni­tive con­se­quences are more exten­sive for you than for oth­ers, par­tic­u­larly in light of your posi­tion, your achieve­ments and the con­se­quen­tial outcome.”

It is this state­ment, above all oth­ers, that exposes the judge’s deci­sion not only as poor, but as an insult to the cen­tral tenet of jus­tice – that it applies to every­one equally.

Pub­licly reveal­ing an offender’s name will have dif­fer­ent con­se­quences for indi­vid­u­als depend­ing on their life sit­u­a­tion. It is not for the courts to attempt to manip­u­late those con­se­quences to make them equal for every­one. It might sound para­dox­i­cal, but jus­tice isn’t always fair.

Those who hold a high social sta­tus must accept that with it comes greater scrutiny when they behave in a man­ner unbe­com­ing that sta­tus. There can­not be one set of rules for them, and another for every­one else.

The Law Com­mis­sion has rec­om­mended the Gov­ern­ment raises the thresh­old for name sup­pres­sion and sets clearer guide­lines on how it should be applied.

What hap­pened in the Palmer­ston North Dis­trict Court yes­ter­day might not have exposed the iden­tity of a sex­ual deviant, but it has revealed how impor­tant it is for the Gov­ern­ment to adopt those recommendations.

Yeah Simon “FIGJAM” Power. Pull your fin­ger out. We have a sit­u­a­tion in New Zealand now where the gov­ern­ment seems to care more about dogs and ani­mals than vic­tims of crime.

This is NOT the first time that Judge Grant Fraser has med­dled with the intent of the law. A quick Google reveals a crim hug­ging, lib­eral men­ace to the peo­ple of the Manawatu.

A Massey Uni­ver­sity stu­dent who acci­den­tally shot a friend while out hunt­ing pos­sums has escaped con­vic­tion in what a judge called a unique and unprece­dented case.

Judge Grant Fraser also pro­hib­ited pub­li­ca­tion of the student’s name when he appeared before him in Palmer­ston North Dis­trict Court on Friday.

The stu­dent was ordered to pay the vic­tim, whom Judge Fraser said had made “mirac­u­lous” recov­ery, $5000 for emo­tional harm……

….He added that pub­li­ca­tion of the defendant’s name would ham­per his abil­ity to “move for­ward” and would impact on his rehabilitation.

So what, why does this Judge like plac­ing name sup­pres­sion on case so peo­ple can get ahead. They have com­mit­ted drimes, been con­victed and the one thing miss­ing is shame. They can carry on as if noth­ing bad hap­pened. This is the lib­eral elite at its worst, cos­set­ting crim­i­nals in cotton-wool, so they don’t feel bad about what they have done.

Judge Grant Fraser is not stranger to the other side of the bench either;

A man who suf­fered a bro­ken leg and cracked ribs when a Dis­trict Court Judge col­lided with his moped has described the $1800 repa­ra­tion ordered in the case as an insult.

Judge Grant Fraser, of Palmer­ston North, who admit­ted a charge of care­less dri­ving caus­ing injury, was dis­qual­i­fied from dri­ving for six months and ordered to pay reparation.

While dri­ving in Tau­ranga in Jan­u­ary the judge col­lided with moped rider Sel­wyn Parker, who suf­fered a bro­ken leg, cracked ribs and bruising.

He was sen­tenced in the Welling­ton Dis­trict Court on Fri­day. Chief Dis­trict Court Judge Rus­sell John­son said it was clear that Fraser was remorse­ful for what had happened.

The judge was ordered to pay $1800 in repa­ra­tion for emo­tional harm.

So Judge Grant Fraser got a nice lit­tle help­ing hand from fel­low Judge Rus­sel John­son who pinged him just $1800. Com­pare that to the other case above where Judge Grant Fraser decided that sim­i­lar injuries war­ranted $8000 in compensation.

It really does seem that if you are a celebrity, a judge, a doc­tor, a lawyer or accoun­tant that you get spe­cial treat­ment before the courts and the boy clubs look after their own, not to men­tion that the judi­ciary seem to have taken a rather sim­ple but flawed law and applied it rather lib­er­ally in order to give crim­i­nals carte blanche with access to name suppression.

The judi­ciary can’t be trusted. It is time for min­i­mum sen­tenc­ing and removal of judges dis­cre­tion as they have demon­strated with out a shadow of a doubt that they can’t be trusted to fol­low the wishes of the peo­ple. Judges have lost touch with society.

Cross posted at shame.co.nz

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