What's Margaret Wilson got in common with Bill Clinton?

Friday 17 Dec 2004

Stephen Franks - Press Releases - Crime & Justice

By using her expiring Attorney-General powers to promote unsuitable candidates, Speaker-designate Margaret Wilson raises memories of President Bill Clinton's last days, when he effectively pardoned a batch of crooked supporters, ACT Justice spokesman Stephen Franks said today.

Mr Franks was commenting on the appointment of Ms Jan Walker as a District and Family Court Judge.

"I am extremely reluctant to comment on a particular judicial appointment but if this one goes without criticism I would be complicit in encouraging Labour's next Attorney-General to politicise the judiciary with impunity.

"Most would-be judges take care in the years before appointment to show their capacity to be non-partisan. In appearances before the Justice and Electoral Select Committee, Ms Walker did exactly the opposite. She made a point of citing her political connections, and branding in political terms and dismissing without reflection, views she disagreed with. I was left with an impression that she lacked a capacity to understand different points of view.

"I am told by people without axes to grind that her rigid ideological insensitivity was a key reason for losing Timaru as a Labour Party candidate. These are not the right attributes for a judge.

"Ms Wilson has a record of poor appointments, among the latest being that of Ms Jacquie Grant to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, despite her obvious inability to grasp the centrality of tolerance - even of unpopular views.

"Perhaps Ms Walker has virtues that outweigh appearances. Even if that is the case, an Attorney-General with a commitment to upholding the standing of our courts would not have made an appointment that smacks of political cronyism," Mr Franks said.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>