Editorial: Hats off to actions of a brave judge

Justice Helen Winkelmann is my pinup girl for the decade.

When the chief High Court judge found that the police had acted unlawfully seizing Dotcom's computer gear, she took the first and long overdue step of significance to reign in the unbridled power and arrogance of our guardians.

What astonished me was to read an alarming response to the judge by some police functionary who implied that the police would take advice from the American FBI what to do next.

This is an outrageous response by a typical product of the police culture. A judge issues a determination and some cop decides they will first check with America? I was motivated to comment about police excess in fulfilling their obligations to the public, after their shocking abuse of anti-terrorist legislation when they raided the people of Tuhoe. I said then, any and all crimes being committed by those charged under the draconian anti-terror laws could and should have been dealt with under the Crimes and Arms Acts; a pronouncement which in the fullness of time was vindicated.

Now we have the police brought to their knees a second time in a short period but this time by our highest court. Justice Winkelmann has shown the police are not above the law.

I have published several articles making the case that the police seek to preserve their reputation by avoiding scrutiny of their actions in Courts,

including the shooting by police of courier driver Halatai Naikoto in 2009 and the shooting of Hawke's Bay teenager Lachlan Kelly-Tumarae in 2011. The police hid behind absolution from the Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA) rather than have the culpability of their actions determined by a court.

There is a massive difference between a court calling before it all evidence so people and forensic data can objectively be assessed by qualified judges according to well-established rules and having a closed-door review by the IPCA - staffed as it is with former cops with its own Kangaroo court style rules and which is certainly not an institution with the status of a court.

Only when more judges demonstrate the fortitude of Helen Winkelmann to stand against the sacred cow of police, will justice be done in Aotearoa.

Ross Meurant is a former police inspector and former Hobson MP.