Winston Peters: Still innocent until proven guilty

It has all the hallmarks of a Shakespearean tragedy.
A man at the top of the international power structure, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, chief of the International Monetary Fund, saw his scintillating career reduced to tatters after allegations of events in a high-priced hotel room.
Within days, he jumped before he was pushed and now faces serious criminal charges that could result in a long stretch in prison.
There is an old maxim that the rich and famous have to live by: Yesterday a peacock, today a feather duster. And to ensure that a breathless public was not lulled into thinking this was a one-off, revelations around the hotel event quickly induced a bevy of accusers with a similar story to tell.
That, with hindsight, was not unexpected, and not unlike the red-carded player, jeered from the game with a proverbial, "He's been doing it all day, ref."
If this derisory catcall is true then why have so many victims and their connections been so quiet for so long?
That, however, is not the only point. To find the truth behind these events there have to be charges laid, followed by a trial where presumably all the evidence will emerge. And for that to happen there has to be a process where the accused, and the victim, can fairly present their sides of the story.
There is a stark warning for international jurisdictions, including ours, in how this scandal has proceeded. Every day so-called new evidence is drip fed in the American media. On all appearances this funnelling of so-called facts comes straight from lawful authorities and that is nothing short of an abomination to lawful process.
None of us knows what happened in the hotel room and therefore any relevant information should first have undergone the test of proof before judgment. That is not what we are witnessing here. If Dominique Strauss-Kahn is guilty then he should have the book thrown at him. That said, it is alarming that he is well into a trial at the wrong court - the court of public opinion.
The American legal system, they claim, is the finest in the world. It is not. There are aspects of how the Americans go about lawful processes that alarm other countries and with good reason.
To begin with, why is an accused frog-marched before the media, manacled, dishevelled and exhausted, or "perped", the US expression for the preliminaries before a charge?
What ethical purpose can it possibly have other than political when authorities find it necessary for the accused to be arraigned before the media where such a serious issue is reduced to a sideshow? Or have the Americans learnt nothing from past disasters?
The assassination of then-president John F. Kennedy ended in the accused not even getting to trial.
Lee Harvey Oswald was shot before nationwide TV by the most dubious of patriots, Jack Ruby, who somehow joined a police "perp" (public walk before the cameras) thereby denying investigators a key witness to whether he acted alone or was part of a conspiracy. And that process has been repeated time after time, ad nauseam.
Given the American system of choosing its judges and its police chiefs, it is clear that the greatest motivation behind this shambolic process is to demonstrate to the voting public that their elected police chief is on the case. And that professional diversion has often been behind so many innocent American accused being found guilty.
The first 42 cases investigated by an American legal reform group re-examining guilty verdicts with the benefit of new DNA evidence found 20 prisoners to be wrongly behind bars. That is a damning indictment from which the American system should have learnt. Their handling of the Strauss-Kahn case proves they have not.
Everyone is equal before the law. Justice is blind. The accused is innocent until proven guilty. These are all fundamental principles of a sound system of justice. However we might be appalled at the information stoking the rumour mill bearing down so unfavourably against the former IMF chief, there are those in a civil society who only want to know one thing: What is the truth here?
The public does have a right to know the truth and nothing but the truth. So far we have all been brought into a vortex of rumour, suspicion, innuendo and obvious guilt by past hitherto unrevealed allegations. Lies and misinformation can rarely be corrected. It's like emptying a feather pillow from the window of an aeroplane and later collecting up all the feathers into the same bag.
Whatever is wrong with New Zealand's legal system this American practice is, thank heavens, not one of them. And it is to be hoped it never is.