Nick Smith found in contempt of court

Just in that Nick Smith, MP for Nelson, has been found by the High Court to be in contempt of court, as have Radio NZ and TV3.

The High Court has said they consider that Dr Smith’s interfered with the administration of justice, in order to assist his constituents.

IMO this is a really sad decision. This family had lost custody of their child to a relative, despite there being no abuse or bad parenting from the parents. They transferred custody as a temporary measure to give them some time out and the relative refused to transfer custody back and as it took the Court three years to deal with the case, they ruled the child should stay with the relative instead of the parents as they were now more used to the relative.

The poor parents had lost their child despite doing nothing wrong and in fact had approached their local Maori MP (as they are Maori) and it was only after he or she didn’t help them that they went to Nick who took up their case that parents should not lose their children when there are no issues such as abuse or neglect.

The only good thing that may come from this decision is a determination to lift much of the secrecy around the often criticsed Family Court.

UPDATE: Nick Smith just spoke in the general debate and you could have heard a pin drop. I’ll see if I can post up tomorrow a transcript because to summarise it would not do it justice.