Mana | Movement of the People

Ae Marika! 30 July 2013

Well – the court case is over, I defended myself rather than get one of the many lawyers who offered to do it for free, and after 3 days of testimony I was convicted and fined $500 for failing to remove a vehicle from a public road when requested to do so by the police. And before anyone tells me what a dummy I was to not get a lawyer, here’s a few facts.

Fact 1: There is nobody in the world, nobody, who knows more about what happened to me than me. Having somebody else tell me to shut up while they screw things up on my behalf doesn’t appeal to me (I can screw things up all by myself thank you!).

Fact 2: Some lawyers are bloody incompetent, some don’t give a damn and some excel in both. I first noticed it 40 years ago when Hilda and I were working down in the courts for Nga Tamatoa – useless bloody lawyers doing a crappy job, treating their clients with disdain, and then looking down their nose when the judge sent their clients off to jail. And the poor bloody clients – getting dragged out of court with tears in their eyes and wondering how on earth it all happened. I swore I’d never let it happen to me.

Fact 3: Lawyers are required to bow and scrape to the judge. Even if their client has been shafted by the judge (and it happens more than you’d think), a lawyer still has to stand and say “as it please your honour”. It makes me sick to watch it.

Fact 4: Lawyers are required to stick to the law. They are not allowed to introduce ‘politically charged’ testimony. If they do and the judge tells them to stop, they must stop. When you defend yourself the judge gives you a little leeway. If you’ve got the balls for it, you can turn that into a lot of leeway.

During the case last week I got to call 14 witnesses, and they were all able to talk about the reasons why they were there. They told the court how 3 years ago, 156 families got a letter telling them they would have to get out of their homes – not because they weren’t paying the rent, not because their yards needed a clean-up and not because HNZ wanted to renovate their homes, but because HNZ wanted to sell the land to private developers.

Some families had lived there for more than 40 years, raised their kids there, watched their grandchildren grow up nearby, and in one case even great-grandchildren. They’d had family members pass away and kept them overnight in their homes, they’d watched over other people’s children and other people’s homes, and they’d watched over one another … they were Ngati GI, and HNZ was destroying their community in the interests of money.

Is it any wonder that they resisted? Is it any wonder that I stood by them?

$500 was a bargain for the opportunity the families got to finally tell their story – a price I am happy to pay.

AE MARIKA is an article written every week by Hone Harawira, leader of the MANA Movement and Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau. You are welcome to use any of the comments and to ascribe them to Mr Harawira. The full range of Hone’s articles can be found on the MANA website at www.mana.net.nz.