Sort it out, Amy – and give judges back the power to decide when restorative justice should kick in

Alf would have counselled Restorative Justice Aotearoa to lie low and stay stum about changes to the Sentencing Act, which came into effect on Monday 6 December.

As a namby-pamby bunch on law-and-order matters, they were unlikely to be too fussed about the backlog of cases building up in the courts. And of justice delays being justice denied.

They put their emphasis on the changes to the Sentencing Act being intended to make restorative justice services more accessible in the District Court.

This – of course – means work and more money for their members.

The changes have stripped judges of their discretion to decide if restorative justice process is appropriate.

Moreover South Island lawyers are complaining that Christchurch’s restorative justice programme is so under-resourced that every week it falls another six weeks behind.

Amy Adams is going to check it out. 

 

Come on Amy – let’s scrap these restorative justice rules instead of waiting to see if they work

No, not all judges get it right – certainly not nearly as often as Alf would like.

But when it comes to who should decide when a cup of tea and a cosy chat is an appropriate way of sorting things out between victim and offender, we politicians seem to have seriously stuffed things up in June last year when we tinkered with the Sentencing Act.

We gave the job of deciding restorative justice is the way to go in a case to a touchy feely bunch of tossers who happen to be the providers of the restorative justice process that will be followed whenever someone pleads guilty.

It’s a bit like legislatively deciding that ice-cream vendors should decide when people should be required to eat ice-cream, then sending the bill to the taxpayers.

What a joke.