Summarised by Centrist
Commentator Lindsay Mitchell has welcomed a High Court decision confirming that gang insignia seized under the government’s patch ban must be permanently forfeited, regardless of its personal or cultural significance to the wearer.
Writing on Wednesday, Mitchell described Justice Andrew Becroft’s decision as a “sound judgement”, saying he was right to emphasise that Parliament had expressly intended the law to reduce gangs’ ability to intimidate the public.
The ruling follows several District Court cases in which judges ordered police to return seized gang patches after convictions, including on the grounds that the items carried cultural, personal or tikanga-based significance.
Police appealed two of those decisions.
Justice Becroft ruled in their favour, stating that forfeiture was “automatic and absolute” and that once gang insignia was forfeited to the Crown, the defendant “irretrievably loses” it.
The decision effectively closes off judicial discretion to return patches after a conviction, even where a judge believes an item has strong kinship, cultural or sentimental value.
Mitchell noted that Becroft had previously spoken extensively about the backgrounds of young offenders, including fatherlessness and the absence of positive male role models.
She argued that despite his understanding of the factors that can draw young men towards gangs,
Becroft correctly placed Parliament’s clearly stated intention above sympathy for individual offenders.
“It is Parliament that makes the law,” Mitchell wrote.
Read more over at Stuff and Brash & Mitchell
