… Imbecile.

diplomatic pressure won’t affect the courts much. less than internal pressure from the public in the other direction, at least.

and they Cannot afford to be seen as puppets of the crown, as the risk of that was Exactly why the general public were Against the removal of the monarch/privy council as the highest court of appeal in favour of the internal high court. the government of the day rammed it through Anyway, (sick of loosing cases that actually got that far when they pulled stupid shit, basically.), but the High Court loses all legitimacy the moment it starts being swayed by Anything other than evidence and the law as written at the time of the event.

and with it would fall the government which was influenceing it.

the current government here is Already in a precarious position, being known mostly for not having a valid plan and for outright lying to the public over and over again. (whatever idiot came up with the idea of claiming that Raising GST (a consumer Sales Tax, which is a regressive tax, hits those with a lower income much harder) and Lowering Income Tax (a progressive tax, in this case lowered most for the richest people) would somehow leave the Average New Zealander better off should be shot. not least because they were using the ‘average income’ as a basis for that. … the average income which is about double what at LEAST half the population makes. … let’s not even get into the nonsense that is the claims about asset sales.)

the New Zealand population is usually pretty laid back about stuff, but when you actually get them riled up (and this case is doing it) they tend to react quite significantly… and often in strange ways. (why riot when you can drive a tractor up parliament’s steps and block the door with it? how exactly do you respond to the situation of the Highschool Students getting so pissed off with the constant disruption caused by disputes between the government and teachers that large numbers of said Students walk out on the school across the country at once? they didn’t just go home, either, but mostly stayed in large groups being very obvious. (catching most officials completely by surprise and sort of in support of the teachers but mostly in support of getting their Classes back onto some sort of regular schedule. ring-leaders were a mix of the more disruptive and disreputable sorts and those who are normally the most well behaved model students. hilariously, at my own school at the time, a lot of the teachers knew it was going to happen. the principle, who the students generally agreed was rubbish, either didn’t have a clue or had no idea how bad it was going to be)

then there’s protest marches half the length of the country or so, and if you go back a bit actual riots and the like.

the whole anti-nuclear thing too. seriously, do you really expect a country that was willing to give up the protection offered by a treaty with the US against the (far more real and worrying possibility at the time than the US’s worries about a communist ‘domino effect’) possibility of a resurgent Japanese empire in the name of a Principle (one adopted, hilarious, by ACCIDENT originally, though it proved too popular to be easily abandoned after the fact) and go so far as to forbid said country’s ships (specifically the nuclear armed ones) entry to it’s ports as well as the use of nuclear power in the country at all and has resisted all attempts to break that stance since, is going to Accept, no matter what it’s government claims, such an offence on something far more concrete and immediate?

go back about a hundred years now and you got actual wars. it’s far enough in the past that it’s unlikely to happen again, but not so far that people don’t remember it as an option.

and that’s before even getting INTO the legalities and the idea of a fair hearing. nevermind JUSTICE.

Justice must be swift, fair, and precise, neither punishing the innocent nor freeing the guilty, though letting the occasional guilty man free is better than punishing an innocent. likewise, there’s a distinct limit to how much precision and fairness can be set aside for swiftness, but past a point a lack of swiftness leaves justice unserved.

there is nothing fair, just, Or Legal, about what you suggest. At All.

it is, in fact, the sort of thing wars are fought over, were it not for the large ocean in between and massive power difference between the nations in question.

… … ok, this rant got sort of out of hand. oh well.