A law unto themselves!

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a.woodrow, Jul 22, 3:13am

tintop, Jul 22, 3:29pm
Some road controlling authorities did not review the speed limits that they has set 5 years earlier as required by the empowering legislation.

Fixed now.

No problem :)

kazbanz, Jul 22, 3:43pm
No its not "no problem"
1)10 years not 5 years
2)Why should laws be allowed to be enacted retrospectively?

tintop, Jul 22, 3:52pm
Parliament has allowed themselves to do so.
Who is to say that they cannot ?

Imagine the chaos if they had not.

fordcrzy, Jul 22, 4:04pm
the FACT remains that speeding tickets were issued on roads illegally! this is the LAW we are talking about here, not just some vague suggestion. if the speed limit posted was there illegally or was expired then people should not have been issued tickets and the tickets are invalid.

tintop, Jul 22, 4:12pm
I have no argument with that - except that tickets were issued ( and accepted) . by persons not aware of the legality.

But what is your practical suggestion as to what should have been done about the situation ?

Parliament has chosen to pass another LAW :)

timmo1, Jul 22, 8:40pm
Apologies for speaking for you fordcrazy, but what should have been done is not apply the law retrospectively.

fordcrzy, Jul 22, 8:44pm
no worries timmo. thats exactly what should have happened. perhaps we should refuse to pay tickets for speed limits that are dropped and just say "but it was 70kmh last year so im not paying. i'm retrospectively obeying the law. The fact remains that the limits were NOT legal. I.E they were ILLEGAL so the government once again has legislated to make ILLEGAL actions by police and local authorities, legal retrospectively. and that my friend is not only BS but against our democratic rights.

kazbanz, Jul 22, 9:09pm
I suppose the argument is that perception and understanding was that the speed limits applied. Pretty thin argument though.

lk104, Jul 22, 9:09pm
To stop people trying to get out of speeding tickets on a technicality, you sped, you got caught, pay up!

tintop, Jul 22, 9:09pm
You have said what should not have been done, but that is not what I asked -

What practical solution should have been applied ?

tintop, Jul 22, 9:13pm
You have the democratic right to vote all of Parliament out of office at the next general election.

In the meantime, the democratically elected parliament can, (within some limits,) do pretty much as it sees fit.

tintop, Jul 22, 9:19pm
It would seem that a number of road controlling authorities lost track of the requirements of the enabling legislation. ( I have done so myself - but not with such a wide spread result! )

Clerical errors, staff changes, re-organisation - all sorts of minor snafus can happen - just as in any organisation.

The public and the enforcement staff would have had no idea that time had expired on a number of speed zones and carried out business as usual.

timmo1, Jul 22, 9:28pm
What speed limit was broken. There wasn't one.

lk104, Jul 22, 11:01pm
The one on the sign you sped past

tintop, Jul 22, 11:09pm
The catch is that the limits were set legally by bylaw by the road controlling authority, but a requirement under the empowering legislation to review the limits within a set period was not carried out by some of the authorities - therefore the limit set by that bylaw was no longer valid. The signs, even though they were still in place did not have any legal significance. But the road user and traffic enforcement cops did not know this - so it was tickets as usual.

timmo1, Jul 22, 11:16pm
I sped past?

kazbanz, Jul 23, 1:29am
But DID you speed if the speed limit wasn't legal?
doesn't affect me but retrospective legislation is a scarey place to allow government to go.
What about retrospective GST or retrospective breath alcohol laws?

a.woodrow, Jul 23, 2:07am
Except by law they weren't speeding

bumfacingdown, Jul 23, 2:32am
Except that is all academic now, maybe different if someone had twigged and challenged it in court. It appears no one did

a.woodrow, Jul 23, 2:56am
Clearly, but it doesn't change the fact that they unlawfully issued the tickets. What happens when parliament decides to make something else legal or illegal retrospectively? Are you ok with that?

kevymtnz, Jul 23, 3:26am
CORRUPTION

bumfacingdown, Jul 23, 3:50am
In this case its the word of the law V the intent of the law

tintop, Jul 23, 4:10am
Who? Where ?
Send it to Grace.

http://www.anticorruption.co.nz/

intrade, Jul 24, 3:42pm
well the whole country operates like this , solong as it makes revenue its ok to to make rules regs and fines worse then any communist country only when wohooo it dont generates any revenue then its all of a sudden WE have democracy to obey by in this country, i find that extreem disturbing practice.
i come from a gungester police state country but they put all of it to the nation to vote on before it became laws. just they dont tell you yes mans no on the vote forms there, because most people just vote no and dont actuarly look its how they almost got in to the eu once with that trick. but hey its all there on the vote paper if you read the finprint.
but in this country Newzealand its only democracy by what thug you want to be lied to come election that is really the only democratic part of the fake-democracy we have here.