Twenty-seven tyrants and generals speak out against the meddlesome legal profession

We write as a group of concerned despots and monsters with expertise in the area of unconstitutional practices.

Earlier today a letter signed by twenty-seven respected legal academics was published, condemning the wide powers granted to the Government under the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010.

We share the deep concern expressed by Gerry Brownlee, the recipient of these extraordinary powers, about the academics’ response when he says:

I am on strongly on the side of people whose lives have been dislocated, not the hand-wringing academics who frankly are contributing nothing to the recovery effort.

We remain hopeful that the desire to do “everything we can” in the short term will blind the people of New Zealand to the long-term harms of the actions of their politicians. In particular, abandoning established constitutional values and principles in order to remove any inconvenient legal roadblock is just the sort of thing we like to see. It would have been more fitting had tanks and armoured vehicles been involved in the granting of these wide powers, but we understand that the vehicles used by the New Zealand army can’t be relied upon to stay roadworthy.

What our Parliament has done, in just a single day, by unanimously passing the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act 2010 represents an extraordinarily broad transfer of lawmaking power away from Parliament and to the executive branch, with minimal constraints on how that power may be used.

So for passing this constitutional outrage in record time we congratulate the Parliament of New Zealand. In years to come, statues will be erected to the brave soldiers of the realm who preserved us from the dangers of dissension and disorder, and from the ever-present meddling of outsiders. But let us not forget that without this supremely supine act by the representatives who were meant to be the guardians of democracy, there could be no Fatherland.

Signed:

General Idriss Déby Itno, President of Chad
Raul Castro, President of Cuba
Yahya Jammeh, President of Gambia
Aleksander Lukashenku, President of Belarus
Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe
Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt
King Mswati III of Swaziland
Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba
Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria
Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia
Isaias Afwerki, President of Eritrea
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, President of Turkmenistan
Meles Zenawi Asres, Prime Minister of Ethiopia
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran
Kim Jong Il, North Korean President
Than Shwe, Burmese general and strongman
Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan
Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Blaise Compaoré, President of Birkina Faso
Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda
Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea
Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan
Muammar al-Gadaffi, President of Libya
Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
François Bozizé, President of Central African Republic