John MacDonald: Guilt until innocence proven would be a slippery slope

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

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7d ago 4:56

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I’m no apologist for shoplifters. I think it is appalling that retail crime costs retailers $2.6 billion a year. And that more than half of them not only have to deal with shoplifters coming in and helping themselves to stuff, close to 60% of retailers also have to put up with threatening behaviour from these thugs.

But I’m not sold on this plan by the Government to turn “innocent until proven guilty” on its head for people accused of shoplifting and, instead, assume they’re guilty from the start until they themselves can prove they’re innocent.

I’m coming at it from two perspectives: the practicality of it, and the risk of it becoming a bit of a slippery slope.

Yes, as Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith was saying on Newstalk ZB today, it would be similar to a speeding ticket, where you get the ticket and it’s on you to prove that you weren’t in the wrong.

Except speeding tickets are issued by the police, and I don’t hear the Government saying that they’re going to have police writing out tickets for shoplifters. Already, if you go to Westfield Mall and get a parking ticket, you can get out of that because they don’t have authority to issue them. The same thing will happen with shoplifters.

The other reason I don’t like this idea is that I see it as a slippery slope. If we start saying shoplifters are guilty until they can prove that they’re innocent, then what or who next?

If it’s okay to tell someone accused of shoplifting that they’re guilty until they can prove otherwise —instead of forcing those making the accusations to prove their guilt— then why not do it with other crimes?

When it comes to the law and the justice system, whether we like it or not, everyone needs to be treated equally.

Whether we like it or not, that includes people allegedly involved in criminal activity. Which is why I think it would be wrong to start telling people accused of shoplifting that, unless or until they can prove their innocence, they’re guilty.

I’m no shoplifting sympathiser, but this mucking around with one of the basic foundations of the justice system is the wrong approach.

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