The Court of Appeal has upheld Arthur Taylor's challenge to the ban on prisoner voting under the NZ Bill of Rights Act ... except that he personally shouldn't have been able to bring the case in the first place, and he still won't be able to vote. But still - exciting!
I've been writing on the issue of prisoner voting generally, and jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor's various challenges to the 2010 law preventing it in particular, for quite some time now.
... or, rather, the fellow prisoners who joined his application to have the legislative ban on prisoners voting declared inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act win again.
I'll write more on this later today, but seeing as I don't do social media and there may also be some of you out there in internet land who don't either ...
The parliamentary review of the 2014 election has just been reported. What treats do our MPs have in store for the 2017 campaign and beyond?
In the aftermath of every general election, Parliament's Justice and Electoral Committee holds an inquiry to review how the process went and identify matters that could be improved.
Arthur Taylor's most recent attack on the ban on prisoner voting has failed. But we learnt something about New Zealand's constitution as a result. Oh - and judges really need to think about how their words may sound to all those who read them.
Last Friday afternoon the High Court released its most recent judgment in jailhouse lawyer Arthur Taylor's ongoing legal crusade against the law that bans prisoners from voting (PDF copy of Taylor v Attorney General available here).
A New Zealand High Court has just told Parliament that its law limits rights in a way that cannot be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. In other words, it failed in its basic task as a lawmaker.
The issue of prisoner voting - or, rather, the issue of prisoners not being able to vote - has been a regular bête noire of mine. Here, for example, is my view on the National Government's decision to remove the right, back when I was young and full
