NZ High Court sitting on shaky ground:

While the people of Christchurch wait in vain for their earthquake damage claims to be dealt with, Marc Krieger has been served with an application for a Court declaration against him for "Contempt" for informing them of the reasons for the delay, which are, basically, incompetence and corruption on a massive scale.

On the day after fellow journalist and publisher Vince Siemer was ordered to go to jail for publishing the outrageous decision of Winkelmann J on his website Kiwisfirst, to deny the Urewera defendants a jury trial - as enshrined in the cornerstone of justice for centuries, the Magna Carta.   Her Majesty's Solicitor General has decided to waste taxpayers' time and money in an utterly futile and unsound application designed to impugn the reputation and destroy the quality of life of yet another unfortunate person who simply sought to expose injustice and corruption, and help the people of Christchurch to understand why their claims have been mismanaged and rejected.

The Crown's application is based on the assertion that "unknown defendants" published a spreadsheet containing information which the Crown claims was "confidential" and the property of the Earthquake Commission (EQC).  The spreadsheet was compiled by a subsidiary of Fletcher Construction, "Fletcher EQC", and it contained the details of 83,000 claims being processed by EQC.

An initial Court order prohibiting the disclosure of the spreadsheet "until further order of the Court", against "unnamed defendants", was served on an anonymous email address on about 10 April 2013.  On 10 July an application was made by Her Majesty's Solicitor General for a Declaration of (alleged) Contempt of Court.  The application declares that the Solicitor General will apply to the Court on 1 August for orders that Mr Krieger be held in contempt and "for such sanction" . . . "that the Court in its inherent jurisdiction considers appropriate" as well as an order for costs.  One of the more ironic statements in this application is at the end; after serving the "unnamed defendants" at the anonymous hushmail address, the Solicitor General has the cheek to say "Note:  the service of documents may not be effected by email or fax . . . "

On 30 June Mr Krieger filed a "Motion to Strike Out EQC's Frivolous Claims" against himself and these "unknown defendants", stating that apart from the request to dismiss the proceedings brought by the Solicitor General he politely declines to participate in the proceedings or to dignify this frivolous action by paying a single cent in filing fees (- and I don't blame him!)  Mr Krieger continues "Furthermore,  I wish to prevent the vexatious plaintiff and its counsel from further depleting what little remains in the EQC fund to pursue this ridiculous vendetta."  Mr Krieger's motion cites section 15.1 of the High Court Rules which allow the Court to strike out a pleading if it discloses no reasonably arguable course of action, is likely to cause prejudice or delay, is frivolous or vexatious or is otherwise an abuse of the process of the Court.

In the interests of justice, and the public interest, Mr Krieger's motion is embedded below in its entirety, because it's well worth the read:





This post will be updated with news of this frivolous folly - this is how your taxes are being spent - trying to shut up people who expose corruption.