Letter to NZ First MP Ron Mark from Fathers Coalition Spokesman Benjamin Easton.

Tena koe Ron Mark (NZ First),

As posted on CYFSWATCH NZ

Letter to NZ First MP Ron Mark from Fathers Coalition Spokesman Benjamin Easton.
Wednesday, 14.03.2007, 10:14am (GMT12)

Wednesday 13th March 2007 I have been reading through the debate on the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill as it starts in the Hansard 30, 7 November to 9 November 2006. I write to comment on your speech starting on page 6276. I am interested in all of the speeches that are given on this topic but yours is the most valuable so far to the points I wish to make. Your speech was delivered with mana, humility and passion. I also compliment the preceding speech from Te Ururoa Flavell (Maori Party). I believe that Te Ururoa Flavell’s speech was powerful and cause enough for you to stand and defend in a nation’s history where our fabric of shame is cloaked lightly in hypocrisy. You defended those you admired or respected for their acts in standing up against past inconsistencies and rallied hard at those who have sheltered in ignorance from specifics in our cruel, bullying and violent past. I ask you to open your mind to what you said and compare your values in integrity against, as Te Ururoa Flavell had said, “Whether it is murder, slaughter, or dispossession through the gallows, cannon, sword, legislation or prison camp is irrelevant in defining torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment”. Reading the speeches by all speakers on this topic as they have been given so far, there is a unanimous and across party consistency for challenging the crime of torture. It seems to me likely from what you said that you would affirm Te Ururoa Flavell’s above quote as reasonable. I ask you to consider carefully his choice of the word “legislation”. If a parliament in power in New Zealand included torture as a function to their regime it would need to be written into its legislation. Failing this, torture would be limited to those who administered its act as against law. Primarily, parliament would be invulnerable for such acts. I ask you to consider our interpretation of torture under our Crimes of Torture Act 1989 (COTA). If you compare this to the Domestic Violence Act 1995 (DVA) and the requirement of children to be included in any protection order where made off allegations of domestic violence, recognising that the respondent for a protection order must always attend a living without violence course, you will comprehend that there is a direct consistency between the DVA and the COTA. If a man is alleged as violent we tell him he must change his behaviour to accommodate a certain view, and where he will not comply with this order we will keep him from his children, whether or not he has been violent toward them.  This is an act of torture as consistent with the COTA. As an example of extreme, I use my circumstances. Under the COTA, I am tortured by the state for a demand that I must choose and pay to use what I consider to be a dysfunctional family law system if I want to have my rightful association with my children honoured or protected. I have had approximately 30 hours contact with my children in six years because I refused to defend against improper allegations of my violence that turned into a permanent protection order. I choose not to use a dysfunctional family law system, as should be my freedom. I can prove that the system is not protecting a protected association between children and fathers, yet for all of my energy those operating that system reject my allegations without reasonable or balanced statements as to where they can be justified. On further analyses you will recognise that the DVA is heavily inconsistent with the BORA. S.17 of the BORA is the right of association. S.25 1 (c) demands a presumption of innocence before guilt. Ex-parte (no right of reply) orders and the need to defend before being presumed innocent are in direct breach of this fundamental principle in law. Additionally, s.9 demands that cruel treatment will not be inflicted in our civilised, as democratic and first world society – yet we seem blindly to think it is OK to subject a section of parents to this condition. Speaking to the wider point, under New Zealand legislation inconsistencies with the BORA are permitted and if brought before the courts there are cases where other legislation will not be affected as consistent with s.4. I quote from a letter I received from the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Mark Burton on 31 January 2007. He says, “…In the event that an interpretation consistent with the Bill of Rights Act is not possible, section 4 provides that the court does not have power to decline to apply that inconsistent provision”. He also notes in reply to my complaints that,  “…Section 6 of the Bill of Rights provides that ‘wherever an enactment can be given a meaning that is consistent with the rights and freedoms contained in this Bill of Rights that meaning shall be preferred to any other meaning. This means that if there is an interpretation question arising in court in relation to a provision in another Act and the Bill of Rights Act, the court will endeavor to give the two provisions an interpretation consistent with the Bill of Rights Act where that is possible. For this description as relevant to the inconsistencies between the DVA and the BORA, it seems logical that a challenge in court would rule in favour of protecting the association between a father and his sons or daughters. S.9, s.17 and s.25 1 (c) are specifically consistent with the BORA.  I presume you are aware under s.5 of the BORA flexibility is given its entitlement. S.5 determines that a limitation can be applied if demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society. Where our national communities have a significant problem of domestic violence it is not hard to recognise that many public would consider it demonstrably justifiable to accept, if not apply more, the present limits through the DVA. In a recent speech on March 1st The Principal Family Court Judge Boshier stated   “ The Family Court deals with domestic violence on a daily basis through Protection Orders under the Domestic Violence Act (‘the DV Act”), violence in childcare disputes under the Care of Children Act, and State intervention into childcare under the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act. All of these statutes provide powerful protection from violence, however family violence remains a significant and disturbing element of our society. The legislation is widely recognised as some of the most progressive and emulated in the world, and not in need of any significant amendment. Investigation through many speeches in the Hansard on domestic violence will uncover this acceptance across party view as unquestionably supported by the majority of the House. Yet this will be the same majority who describe torture through legislation as intolerable. Which is to advise that we have an inconsistency of significant proportion between two intolerable acts against humans. I hope by your speech you can agree with me on torture being improper; as breaching a mother or father’s civil liberties forcing them to attend a behavioural modifying course, after threats in allegation, where the state threatens, or thereby acts to improperly overpower the mother or father’s natural right of association with their sons or daughters and; you can concede how necessary the function of association with anyone’s own could be to anyone. This then brings me to s.7 of the BORA and reports on the inconsistency of new bills before the House of Representatives as shall be written by the Attorney General’s office. On a Government Bill these are presented on the same day as the introduction of that bill. I ask you to note that there is no such report on any inconsistency with the Domestic Violence Bill (DVB) and the BORA. This is alarming if we as a proud nation can allege that we are properly protective of our children. One logically would think where a son or daughter’s association with their natural mother or father could be damaged for a direct inconsistency with, not only the BORA, but the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), our absolute care should be exercised to protect them. However, this was not the case. I have presented a letter as evidence in related Wellington court proceedings before Judge Walker of 15 September 2003, where the then Attorney General the Right Honourable Margaret Wilson (Labour) had replied to my concerns stating that at the time of introduction the DVA was not considered inconsistent with the BORA. Subsequently, at the time, the then Attorney General the Right Honourable Paul East (National) had provided no report. From my complaints relevant to s.7 of the BORA against possible abuse or neglect by any executive, I received this reply on October 12th 2006 from the Human Rights Chief Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan. She wrote, “ The learned authors of The New Zealand Bill of Rights state that “…Section 7 does not establish a manner and form requirement, nor does it otherwise affect Parliament’s law-making ability. Legislation that according to the courts is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights prevails over the Bill of Rights pursuant to s.4, and whether or not the Attorney General reported to the House prior to its passage is irrelevant.” I ask you to consider that this reply is directly inconsistent with the reply from the Minister of Justice. S.7 of the BORA compels the Attorney General to table a report on the right day for the word “shall”. Shall is a mandatory term and therefore, of course, as due process, it must be manner and form – most especially as the Minister advised me, as it is an interpretation directly consistent with s.6 of the BORA.  The Minister gives the authority of s.4 to the courts, yet its learned authors as quoted by the Chief Commissioner give it discretion as parliamentary privilege to the Attorney General. I ask you who one should consider legally to be correct, the Chief Commissioner, or her boss? The reason that I have these letters of reply is my complaint on the inconsistent tabling of reports under s.7 is accepted as accurate. On June 10th 2003 the Right Honourable Margaret Wilson as Attorney General failed properly to meet with that obligation. The Care of Children Bill 2003 (COCB) did not have a report on its inconsistency with the BORA tabled on that day. She was required to table a report. She has freely accepted that this is truthful. However, a report was written, but was tabled on the following day. The content of the report was to question the age of a child as being the age New Zealand was prepared to discriminate against children. The question was whether a child should be protected by discrimination up until the age of 16, as the national standard, or at 18 as protected under the UNCROC. The report protected an inconsistency in a son or daughter’s protections in discrimination, where there was a removal of the father’s natural guardianship. This depended on the period of his relationship with the mother if living with her. This new provision effectively, (if in the end legally) entitled a single woman, a lesbian couple or a barren heterosexual couple to have children removing the natural rights of contact or association for the child with their biological father. As this practice had been occurring for some time the legislation was likely considered unavoidable, so logical, and therefore reasonable. It is necessary to state, as consistent with your speech that I do not believe the majority of the public, if given a fair opportunity to express their view, would accept such action as an act of child centered humanity, or as tolerable, let alone unavoidable, logical or reasonable. The child is given no choice, and their natural right of association with their father has been cruelly, improperly and instrumentally extracted. There is another important link between the DV and the COC Bills. The report that was tabled for the COCB would suffice for its information with that required by the DVB. A child in the DVA is protected until 17. This means that the child’s only protection so to be discriminated against after 16 is under the UNCROC. I believe that such a challenge is as yet untested in any court. That the DVB did not have a report tabled on its inconsistency with the BORA is clearly improper where a necessity for such a report, then, was established by the content of the COCB report. There is considerable inconsistency constituting new law with the BORA, and I hope that you may, for the values you purport in your speech bring these inconsistencies before the House of Representatives. This still does not challenge the view that domestic violence as it is in New Zealand is abhorrent and that extreme measures are required to combat damage that is delivered on the country’s children. It is still viewed by the Principal Family Court Judge that our provisions in family law are adequate and it is their application, which requires greater resource, attention, and community responsibility. This does not fare very well for the problem where if there are significant inconsistencies in the way the bureaucracy are making and applying its system, and their management rejects to acknowledge those inconsistencies, the damage of such ignorance suffered will continue to be suffered not by the bureaucrats but by the children. In the Dominion Post last Monday 12th March, Judge Boshier publicly rejected meeting with campaigners for a fathers’ coalition. He rejects that we have legitimate complaints even though he cannot disprove my allegations on the improper constitution of the DV legislation. How is this possibly fair? He advocates that our difficulties are resolved through a process of appeal, completely disregarding that there are accurate allegations as there are serious issues of discrimination and bias in the courts, which need urgently to be rectified. How does it help children that he excludes our advise on remedies from the rationalising depths of our most painful and humanly crippling experiences?   It is for these experiences and their conditions that I write: And I compose this letter to be consistent with my protest against the behaviour of the Human Rights Chief Commissioner, Rosslyn Noonan. I complain that my allegations have been directly and improperly neglected. She is aware of what I have said and I believe under the Human Rights Act 1993 s.5 (a) for her function, should have done more to bring my allegations before the public, parliament and the House of Representatives. Consistent with this letter I read that the Commission under the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill is likely to have a new duty, if Keith Locke (Greens), statement in Hansard 31 14 November to 16 November 2006 page 6616 is correct: “ … And the central national preventative mechanism would be the Human Rights Commission, which, although it is not in the Bill at present, everyone says would be the central national preventive mechanism reporting to the subcommittee of the United Nations Committee against Torture.”   If the Chief Commissioner and parliament will not recognise and accept that we have constituted laws improperly where we expand to new and maintain old protections of our children under these bad laws, can we be any different to those from other countries about which we complain, or from our own past, where they likely, as did Saddam Hussein, decree that their integrity is sound? When we accept the abhorrence of the act of torture in open debate yet reject that it can be interpreted to be a part of our daily function, while we complain of others that our children die and bleed, how can we be anything but guilty in the same type of crime, as those whom we label: “those, the really bad guys”? Respectfully, Benjamin Easton. (Of the) Fathers’ Coalition