Posts Tagged ‘Law’
New driving law
Just a reminder that starting from November, driving while using the cellphone by hand is not allowed anymore. That includes texting and talking on the phone.
Base my experience I support this measure. As a still relatively inexperienced and cautious driver I have never attempted to do either. I don't know how others managed to do two things at the same time, but for me, using cellphone removes my eyes from the road, it's no different than driving blindly. No need to prove how dangerous that is.
However, cellphone really is just part of the problem. People do and can be distracted by all sorts of things while driving. But most importantly, I usually find that it's where your mind is, rather than where your eyes are that makes the difference. I have found little evidence shows that such law change can reduce the road toll, but plenty on how bad mood can influence driving performance. Talking over the cellphone, although using the hands-free set, can still take people's mind off the road.
The only solution that can genuinely reduce the road toll is to ban cellphone use altogether, but no government at its right mind would adapt this measure as it would likely to be very unpopular among voters.
Provocation defence
One of the things I don't quite like about this society, is the trend to give over and knee-jerk reactions to a high profile but a single inccident/court case etc, and media are very good at creating a storm out of pretty much nothing.
The Weatherston case is likely to be one of such cases. There is clearly a logical fallacy here, Weatherston used, or abused the availability of provocation as a defense, doesn't necessarily mean provocation defence is flawed - in fact, I could argue this in the exactly opposite way, it has proved that the defense is very reasonable and not accessible to people who want to get away with what they have done - therefore Weatherston failed.
There is no doubt to me that provocation is a geniune defence, I consider myself a pretty quiet and calm person all the time, but just like everyone else, I sometimes can lose my mind too. Current law requires jury to assess whether the evidence could prove a "reasonable man" could be provoked, I think that's pretty much about right - no person at his/her right mind yell to others "come and kill me", however, imagine if one constantly abuses both physically and verbally, overpowered you, and protection order does not work, are you still feeling confident that you won't lose your mind?
The defence in the Weatherston case, did not only argue the provocation, but also by paint Weatherston as a person with mental problems. This could be a even stronger arguement, however, 200+ cuts clearly do not qualify as a man who temporarily lost self control, and that did not pass the jury.
Stunned
Thinking about voting in the child discipline referendum ? Don't know how to decide? This elegantly produced flow chart will help to make the right decision (warning: large picture).
The related story can be found here.
New Employment Relation Act effective from today
Now your new boss can fire you at will within 90 days. You chose that, you voted for it.
This is what National Party is all about. Like the recent job summit, aimmed to "create jobs", but let's face it, it's just a bad publicity stunt. When you see a group of predominantly white, rich bosses sit around talking about "create and save job", you immediately smells something strange. Aren't they the guys who are responsible for the current situation? In fact, to me, it was more like a discussion on how to save their big fat pay cheques.
My suggestions for this ERA is, refuse to sign any contract that has that 90 days clause in it. Yes I recognise employers need confidence, but 90 days trial period is too long. 30 days is more than enough to see whether a new employee is a lazy bum and lives up to employer's expectations. 90 days is way to long, it just opens a big opportunity for those bad employers out there.
But if you don't have a choice - then sign the contract anyway.
Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2009
RMA reform was part of National's 100 days actions, and it's now online. Here it is.
I don't have time to read it yet, I'll try to do that this weekend to see if there's anything interesting. So far it looks like they didn't change the definition of environment, that's a good sign.
More on section 92A of the Copyright Act
As you noticed, the original Act lacks details on how ISP should react in relation to copyright holder complains. Telecommunications Carriers' Forum recently published a draft Code of practice and is open for public submission.
I kind of like this code. In summary:
- Four strikes out, final warning after three strikes;
- No matter how many times you infringed copyright, only one time is counted for a month;
- The strike expires 18 months after it was first issued;
- ISP serves you a "education notice" (one strike) when copyright holders made a complain.
- If you dispute, the notice is revoked, and the copyright holder won't get your personal details ( you don't have the right to dispute after three strikes).
- If you don't dispute, that counts as one strike.
- Four strikes, and you are out.
If this is the way the ISPs will act after section 92A comes in force, then I'm pretty happy.This code of practice reminds me of another important Internet copyright Act - DMCA. They are pretty similar as the duty of identifying whether someone infringed copyright ultimately falls to the justice system, and ISP, as a neutral party, only act upon notices.
If you dispute the "education notice", the only way left for copyright holders is to sue you in court, which is quite unlikely in my opinion, unless you've downloaded too many stuffs justifying their cost and benefit analysis.
TCF definitly made a good call.
