Editorial: Justice by ordeal medieval

Opinion

A "restorative justice" meeting on Wednesday night, in which property developer George Bernard Shaw faced 60 people angry that he had chopped down a protected pohutukawa, succeeded admirably if its objective was to humiliate someone who had committed an offence against the community, albeit on his own property. However, if the objective was to advance the cause of justice there are reasons to doubt the value of the process, which was initiated by Shaw after months of denial that he had anything to do with the destruction of the 100-year-old tree on his property in Royal Oak.

For restorative justice the guilty party is expected to admit wrongdoing and apologise. This Shaw duly did at the meeting in exactly the same terms as he apologised to the Auckland City Council last year when he also paid $50,000 towards the council's costs in the case and agreed in principle to replace the destroyed tree with another mature pohutukawa.

This is all very well and a great advance on where Shaw stood a few months ago, which was not only to deny all knowledge of the offence but to claim he himself was the victim. However, there are good grounds for suspicion - clearly voiced by some at the meeting - that the apology was a tactical move made when he realised he was in deep trouble.

Shaw has a long history of defying protection orders dating back to 1993. Given his record and an increasing trend by the courts to deal firmly with developers who defy protection orders he would have realised that this time the penalty he was facing was likely to be a good deal more than the $4000 fine he received on three earlier occasions. The maximum possible is a $200,000 fine or two years in prison.

But if the value of the apology is open to question a more serious concern is the introduction of a procedure which in some ways resembled a medieval trial by ordeal. There seemed little room for fairness, discussion or defensive arguments on Wednesday night. Shaw was in a position of abasing himself while accusers assailed him with insults expressed in extravagant language. He was called malevolent and his methods "financial fascism" and "economic terrorism". The suggestion that he might go to jail was greeted with obvious glee.

These aggressive attitudes were matched by a display of intolerance and lack of fairness when one man rose to speak in Shaw's defence only to be shouted down.

No matter the justice of their cause or how righteous Shaw's accusers feel, it is impossible to avoid a profound sense of distaste at the crowd having a lone man in its power and treating him to such a verbal battering. There is a certain dignity in admitting a crime and accepting the punishment, that is lost in this sort of public pillory.

The accusers also demean themselves and, worse, they run the grave danger that by going too far they turn the offender into the victim and thus distract attention from what he did. This would be a pity in this case because it should be a showcase against developers who have no regard for the community interest. Those who chop down protected trees and bulldoze heritage buildings obviously calculate that the crime is worthwhile because no punishment will ever be severe enough to cut their profits.

Such people have a lesson to learn but it is one that should properly be taught by a judge and not a crowd of angry people at a public meeting. To do otherwise is not an advance but a return to rough justice and a denial of human dignity.