Five cops who lied in sworn statements at inquest about racist TRG awards will not be punished: Police
Five senior police officers who lied to the coronial inquest about the existence of racist awards in
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Keep putting the boot in Zach the lying corrupt pricks deserve it.
THIS GAME IS RIGGED.
“thereby constituting potential criminal conduct”
We said it before and we’ll say it again, it’s not potential criminal conduct, it is actual criminal conduct as defined very clearly in the NT Criminal Code Act 1983 which states:
‘s119 False declarations and statements
Any person who, on any occasion on which he or she is permitted or required by law:
(a) to make a statutory declaration or an unattested declaration as provided for in the Oaths, Affidavits and Declarations Act 2010;
or
(b) to make a statement or declaration of any other kind before any person authorised by law to permit it to be made before him or her;
makes such a declaration or statement that, in any material particular, is to his or her knowledge false, is guilty of an offence and is liable to imprisonment for 3 years.’
Unfortunately the DPP is permitted from their Rules to discontinue any prosecution they choose to.
And there doesn’t appear to be any requirement to explain those decisions to the aggrieved party, in this case THE PUBLIC.
As noted, the evidence of the crime is out there and as noted, no defamation proceedings will occur because of a pretty rock solid defence of actual truth.
We imagine the actual statutory declarations would be easy to subpoena.
The Gatekeeper in all of this is the Office of the DPP. What a powerful and unaccountable position!
Who was the DPP who made that decision, was it Peter McGowan?
Here is your biggest problem. 2 words: ‘public interest’
‘The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) may step in to take over the case at any time. The DPP has the authority to assume carriage of the matter, continue, or discontinue the prosecution if it is deemed inappropriate or not in the public interest.
Justice is blind. Ha.
Have a laugh at this from the DPP’s website:
MISSION
The mission of the Director of Public Prosecutions is to provide the Northern Territory community with an independent, professional and efficient criminal prosecutions service.
VISION
The vision of the Director of Public Prosecutions is to provide the highest quality of prosecution service to Territorians.
GOALS
Achieving the following goals is recognised as being fundamental to achieving our mission and vision.
To operate with integrity
To deliver an independent, professional and efficient service
To operate as a committed and dedicated team of professionals
To provide a fair and just service to victims and the accused and
To be respectful to the needs of victims, witnesses and to the interest of the community.
We said it before and we’ll say it again:
we need to vote in someone who has the courage and integrity to Change The Game.
THIS GAME IS RIGGED.
‘The NT Police also claimed today for the first time that a criminal investigation into the five officers was dropped after receiving advice from the DPP.’
So, credit where credit is due: assuming this is true, the Police did all they could here in providing a brief of evidence to the DPP.
It was solely the DPP’s decision which has protected these lying officers from prosecution because the Police can’t override the DPP, ask any victim of rape or sexual assault who has had their chance of a trial stopped after the DPP has told them there’s not a reasonable chance of conviction based on the evidence given to them by Police.
As well as the ICAC: Insipid Commissioner’s Additional Corruption.
But then, even if Michael Much More Riches had done his job properly, if he had passed a brief of evidence to the same DPP, they would have stopped it going forward again.
Do we want one unaccountable person, recruited by ???, responsible for these kinds of serious charging decisions?
Should they not at the very least have to explain their decision to the very public whose interest they have deemed to be irrelevant?
We wonder if a new DPP, not Lloyd Babb obviously, can be asked to look at this again with fresh eyes?
Separation of Powers amongst the Darwin hierarchy? Give us a break…
@observaNT: Yes, we know and so do many others, the System is not working the way it should, it is only working for some.
This is why we have to break the cycle of CLP to ALP back to CLP back to ALP forever. They both love and support the non-separation of powers.
Traditional power games in the NT and many other places around the world are deliberately set up like this: to protect the people at the top and to fail everyone else.
But this is also how revolutions begin. That doesn’t have to mean riots in the streets like the French did in the late 1700s but it can mean a revolution of Change in the power structures which support and defend those corrupt people at or near the top.
To start that process there needs to be a whole differently minded group of people wielding the levers of power.
A group who would Change these structural supports to be stronger in doing the things they are supposed to be doing and weaker at being able to be changed back to what we have now.
It’s not difficult to put in place, it just takes the population to break the traditional political cycle of the 2 main parties and put a completely different one in there.
One that is happy to dismantle the old systems of protection which serves the few while ignoring the many.
To make transparency a given and to weed out the cronyism and nepotism that poisons those non-separated Powers.
For example: Make transparency a legislative requirement, then Change the way legislation is passed to make it much more difficult for future ALP or CLP politicians to Change it back at the stroke of a pen.
You support this kind of Change by changing the voting system here in the NT to ensure more diversity then you link that to the ability to pass legislation.
Treat it as a computer security issue: require Multi-factor Authentication to pass laws so one group can’t just waltz in with a majority and start stripping all those checks and balances away to help their mates.
Think of our Clockwork Orange Attorney Generally Rubbish.
Wouldn’t know her Criminal Code Act from her Freedom Of Information request form from her definition of Conflict of Interest from her ‘shouldn’t be taking corporate patronage while a Minister’.
She is USELESS, partly because she has no legal training. Being so USELESS she suits the NT powerful as a puppet with which to do their bidding. One who does as she’s told, won’t/can’t rock the boat and happily stands out front to take all the stress off her Masters.
The fix? Create and/or Change legislation to guarantee that future AGs are at the very least legally trained, better yet practising lawyers but who haven’t worked in SFNT in NT Government and who don’t have a network of cronies to protect in terms of their day to day job.
But laws are only as good as their enforcement, so make sure you enforce them all, without fear nor favour.
Open it all up to public scrutiny to make sure people can see what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.
It’s not that difficult, it just takes Political Will to Change.
If the politicians won’t Change then we need to Change the politicians into people who will Change the political system into one that works for the voting public, not necessarily just for those at or near the top.
The ALP-CLP duopoly won’t Change any of this for Territorians because it gives away most of their political power and hands it back to the citizens.
If anyone else lies to a coronial inquest, their career is over, their facing legal ramifications that include jail time.
Except in the Northern Territory where ‘consequences will flow’ (or not).
The cops must have the mother of all Dirt Files on them pollies.
Apologies, one last comment.
This is the headline from a short interview by NT Police Association President Nathan Finn regarding racist Police:
“It’s a small minority”: NT Police Association President defends his workforce.
While we agree that it’s not credible to tar all officers with the same brush (for anything) our household struggles to see why, after being identified, those “small minority” racist Police officers and/or senior employees, are still there!
If we are to believe you that it is really “a small minority” then it sounds like you know who they are and have identified them as racist – the 5 lying in stat decs to the Coroner’s inquiry Police officers aside – but yet we all have to sit here and accept that they are still employed and being paid.
If you don’t want to be called a racist organisation then get rid of your openly racist employees, publicly, so we can check if you’ve actually done it or not.
If you identify and label some employees as racist and keep them on the payroll then stop complaining when people call you out on that.
You can’t have it both ways.