Wednesday, September 30, 2015



Muppets

Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing is currently underway, and it appears to have hit a hurdle: the government can't find key documentation:

The Crown has been unable to produce the original notices asking for Kim Dotcom and his co-accused to be extradited to the United States.

[...]

North Shore district court services manager Fiona Parkes - a witness for the Crown - today produced several documents she said appeared to be copies of the extradition requests.

Mr Dotcom's lawyer Ron Mansfield pointed out the documents were not date-stamped and asked Ms Parkes if she knew whether any originals existed.

She said she did not.

Yesterday a Justice Ministry employee was unable to confirm if the former Justice Minister, Judith Collins, had seen the provisional arrest warrants and the supporting evidence before the 2012 raid on Mr Dotcom's mansion went ahead.

Under the Extradition Act, the Justice Minister is meant to be given a copy of the warrants and supporting evidence, as part of a briefing.


This matters. A key question in extradition hearings is whether the supporting documents have been produced to the court. The fact that they can't do that (and apparently failed to follow due process in briefing the Minister, creating instant grounds for judicial review) makes them look like a bunch of muppets. And when it comes to matters of law enforcement and people's freedom (and millions of dollars in damages if they fuck up), you'd think they'd take a little more care...