Best of times, worst of times – The Spectator Australia

I almost never sign group letters or put my name to group efforts aimed at correcting some governmental or administrative or judicial or university decision. First off, I tend not to agree with the sort of people who initiate these things. Secondly, it pretty easily descends into virtue-signalling look at me; Im a good person; Ive signed this letter. And thirdly, even amongst those who are inclined to sign there is enough disagreement to make signing up something of a hostage to fortune.

Thats my basic rule. But there have been two exceptions. The first was the Great Barrington Declaration co-authored by three of the worlds most eminent epidemiologists. I was an early signee. They looked at a century of data, not modelling that even at the time looked dodgy and now can be seen to have been wrong on every axis and often by orders of magnitude. And they argued for what was the orthodox approach (focus on protection, dont lock down, trust citizens, etc) up until the end of 2019 when based on China welding people into their homes the public health clerisy, the political class and virtually all journalists (yes, even on Sky News) went crazy and joined Despots, Inc.

The other time takes us across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand as well as back in time all the way to 1993. I had just arrived in that country with my wife from four wonderful, Somerset Maughamesque years in pre-handover Hong Kong. That year a gay childcare worker Peter Ellis was convicted of sexual offences at the childcare centre where he worked in Christchurch. I will sum things up for Australians by saying that the case against Ellis was so weak it made the ridiculous charges against Cardinal Pell look somewhat plausible. The police did everything wrong in how they interviewed the kids, whose stories changed with each interview, with the jury seeing the finished product. The underlying claim of how and when Ellis could have done what he was alleged to have done (in the childcare facility with others about) stretched credibility far more than the latest Dan Andrews reflection on the state of play of the Science. I was then part of the NZ Skeptics and we threw ourselves into helping Elliss supporters. Leading academic critics of recovered memory syndrome the underlying notion that helped convict Ellis came on board. One told me the police case was worse than useless. It was an incredibly broad coalition of people from authors to academics to other childcare workers who worked hard to show Ellis had been wrongfully convicted.

To no avail. The Court of Appeal over there upheld his sentence and thirteen of the sixteen convictions. Magazines took up the Ellis case. He appealed again in 1999. The court palmed this one off to a royal commission. In 2000 Ellis was released from prison, a tainted man and supposed sex-offender. Make that paedophile. He would have been released much earlier but Ellis refused to attend parole hearings, because to do so you have to admit your guilt. (Peter Ellis maintained his innocence right through to his death in 2019.) A ministerial inquiry in 2001 concluded there was no miscarriage of justice. While I couldnt possibly comment, many Kiwis felt that this was just backside covering by a lawyerly and judicial caste that did not want to admit its own errors and role in putting an innocent man in jail for seven or so years. Team Ellis never really gave up. There were petitions to the NZ parliament in 2003, 2008 and 2014. All were unsuccessful.

And then in 2019, basically twenty years after Peter Ellis left prison, the New Zealand Supreme Court finally agreed to take another look at Elliss conviction. By then Ellis had terminal cancer. He died before his appeal could be heard. Ill come back to why in a moment, but the judges allowed his appeal to proceed and last week he was retrospectively cleared. All charges against him were overturned. In a War and Peace-length judgment the NZ Supreme Court unanimously quashed all of the charges because much of the evidence put before the original jury had been contaminated, misleading and incorrect. This had been a significant miscarriage of justice.

Better late than never, I suppose, though this is cold comfort to Peter Ellis who died a guilty man. Maybe he has close family still alive for whom this provides some measure of comfort. Thats the best we can hope for. My view back then was the same as it was with the Cardinal Pell case. It is not just that the Crowns evidence fell short of overcoming the reasonable doubt burden of proof. No, the evidence made it plain that the person charged was patently innocent. Thats what I thought with Pell. Thats what I thought many years ago with Ellis.

Thats the good news. And in a sense we take our wins any way they come. But speaking for myself, I strongly dislike the way the New Zealand court last week went about clearing the name of the late Peter Ellis. You see when Ellis died the court had plenty of room to continue hearing the case under the courts current rules. Instead, the top Kiwi judges called in aid some traditional Maori notion known as tikanga. In fact, the judges during argument suggested Elliss lawyers argue for the continuance on this basis of tikanga which, I think, is a traditional Maori notion that your mana or reputation lives after you. And they have used this Ellis case to inject this Maori notion into the law, to make a big change to the common law. And they did it by usurping the role of democratic politics (since the government had been looking into making this change itself). This is stunning judicial activism. Where are the constraints on them?

Put more bluntly, New Zealand has already travelled far down the path of woke political correctness and race-based politics. I was recently over there and most signs are now in Maori first. The worlds first language of English is subordinated to one spoken by a miniscule number of speakers. Schools are putting Maori foundation myths on the same plane as science. For some time now weve known that judges are some of the biggest agents of this change. This case makes that point on steroids. Consider this: Already NZ race-based activists are saying the top court in Ellis has recognised tikanga (and no, dont ask me for a definition) as being the first law of Aotearoa. Thats what virtually all of the wokesters over there now call New Zealand, if youre interested. And if youre looking for some of the most virtue-signalling wokesters on earth, look no further than the lawyerly caste from which todays judges are chosen. If you doubt me wander into one of the big downtown Sydney law firms, chosen pronouns prominently displayed somewhere.

So the Ellis case was the best of times. And the worst of times. The epoch of belief. And of incredulity. The season of light. And of darkness. That Dickens fellow sure had a way with words.

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Best of times, worst of times - The Spectator Australia