Justice for sale?

The stupidity of this judge's decision beggers belief. Someone drives their car at 110 kp/h in a 50 kp/h zone, smacks into a petrol station, kills a four year old girl and injures someone else inside the building. But hey that's okay because the driver's family can then just open their cheque book, donate $40,000 to the dead kid's kindergarten and get the sentance halved.

Its really nice that he choose to show his remorse in this way...doesn't bring her back though does it? If you're a poor person who commits the same crime and you can't afford to oil the scales of justice like this guy could, then the law will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Are we trying to create different standards of justice for rich and poor here? Should we be measuring the level of remorse in dollars? How much should remorse matter? Shouldn't the value of a human life be same regardless of weather the person who takes it is rich or poor? At the very least should this person be allowed the privilege of driving in NZ ever again?

I realise politicians can't interfere with the judiciary...what they can do is direct them and lay down laws and guidelines for judges so that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the future. This needs to happen because this sets a bad precedent.