The Justice Times

Two fresh ERA decisions make the same point: a genuine business downturn does not excuse a bad redundancy process. Employers still need real consultation, proper redeployment consideration, and fair procedure.

The Court of Appeal's decision in Health New Zealand v Healey begins from an orthodox statutory position, but its logic quickly crumbles.

When wages and benefits no longer buy the necessities of life, taking food can lead to prison. Inside, the state values human labour at as little as 20 cents an hour and insists the arrangement is voluntary.

One case involved misconduct before the Disciplinary Tribunal and the other involved unsatisfactory conduct before a Standards Committee. That explains the arithmetic. It does not settle what the disciplinary system is teaching the profession.

Courts Prosecute Conspiracies and Public Inquiries Repeatedly Uncover Coordinated Wrongdoing. So Why Does Merely Alleging Collusion Make Otherwise Serious People Roll Their Eyes?

New Zealanders are told to leave protection and punishment to the state. But when Police fail to act, protect their own, or prosecute those who defend themselves, the bargain begins to collapse.

The Policing Amendment Bill would expand Police authority to collect information, record the public and control public spaces. After Alan Hall, Jevon McSkimming and tens of thousands of irregular breath tests, Parliament should be strengthening supervision, not widening discretion

The Supreme Court found that crucial evidence was deliberately altered, material was withheld from the defence, and police interviews became unfair and oppressive. Criminal charges against two former police officers and a former Crown prosecutor progressing.

The select committee has restored “rest and recreation”, strengthened roster rules and fixed gaps affecting public holidays and historical remediation. But the revised Bill still prorates sick leave, limits leave accrual to standard hours and replaces some paid time off with cash.

New Zealand’s meth-contamination rules have improved, but the deeper problem remains: policy still too often treats trace detection as danger.

James Wilson and Mark Hoggart are seeking costs after the Supreme Court quashed their Red Fox Tavern murder convictions. The dispute is about money, but it raises a considerably larger question about how a prosecution twice considered unsupported by sufficient evidence eventually resulted in two men being convicted of murder.

Matthew Rogers has pleaded guilty to possessing an objectionable publication after an internal Police review uncovered a wider pattern of concerning internet use. The individual offending matters, but the more serious institutional question is why the systems designed to detect it had been allowed to weaken in the first place.

A police officer is accused of stealing a police-issued Glock. Another Police Glock has reportedly remained unaccounted for since 2024. Internal assurance is no longer enough.

Affirmative consent promises clarity and safety. But if the law cannot explain what conduct counts, it may preserve the ambiguity, deter the most cautious from dating, and leave gendered institutions to draw the boundary after the fact.

Three years after the Crown forcibly removed Ngāti Whātua from Bastion Point, New Zealanders filled the streets to condemn racial oppression in South Africa. The protesters were right, but the country had been remarkably slow to recognise injustice at home.

In workplace cannabis cases, the Employment Relations Authority sometimes invokes “health and safety” without adequately explaining what the drug test proved, what contractual obligation was breached, or why dismissal followed.

The Government has celebrated New Zealand’s new anti-stalking law as though Parliament finally discovered that stalking should be a crime.

2026 employment law changes mean an employee can prove that an employer acted unjustifiably, and still leave the ERA without reinstatement, compensation or even lost wages.

Employment disputes are rarely won or lost on principle alone. Records, process, timing and communication often determine whether fairness becomes a remedy or remains an aspiration.

Open justice depends on more than public access. If court records are difficult to find, understand or scrutinise, the public record becomes technically open but practically obscure.