started with a brief cross-examination from the prosecution, which consisted mostly of the prosecutor accusing me of believing everyone has the right to smash shit they don’t like no matter what the circumstances, which i don’t believe.
i tried to explain that it was complicated, that in this instance i haven’t damaged anything with a positive function in society, although i didn’t explain myself that well.
then we heard the prosecutions’ verbal submissions, which, similar to her leading questions in cross-examination, were saying that this expression can’t be allowed because then it would be trashy-tabloid-style ‘anarchy’, with everyone running around spray painting cock-and-balls’ on cars, jay walking with their pants down and eating without cutlery at restaurants.
james stated that the written submissions adequately dealt with these concerns and he offered to take the magistrate through the relevant parts of the submissions, which mealy the magistrate declined.
the magistrate said he hadn’t had time to read our submissions, which were only received by the courts in their updated version the previous day.
for some reason the hearing had been booked for all day, and i believe the magistrate could have gone away and read the submissions and come up with a judgement that day, but he adjourned until he was available next, 3 months away, end of january.
my lawyer had planned to put in the updated submissions a week before the hearing – he got it in a bit late due to being an over-worked legal aid lawyer – but i doubt the magistrate would have made a decision on the day anyway, despite his claims that he wanted to dispose of the case sooner rather than later.
the delays irritate the shit out of me, it’ll be almost a year since being charged that the case goes through the magistrates’, and ultimately nothing will happen in the magistrates’, for or against their judgemnet doesn’t matter, either we’ll appeal to a higher court or the prosecution will.
here are the submissions:
