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#cuppawiththeoldman ☕️

#Xmasbreakfast ❤️

The Supreme Court’s refusal to let the Trump administration deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area was in large part the result of a friend-of-the-court brief written over a weekend and submitted by a Georgetown law professor. Here's who he is, and why the brief proved so important.

I’m not certain if there’s a big #nzpol community on here, but if there is: Last night I finally launched my web tool to track when this Parliament has gone into urgency, and which bills were affected by it. Takeaways: Urgency sessions: 19 Bills: 104 See the stats: nzpt.cjs.nz

When I mentioned the out-of-office was on, there were still a couple of rats-and-mice left... sigh.

Comment: What worries me the most with Bishop's RMA reform is the loss of significant features of the environment being sacrificed on the altar of development, writes Geoffrey Palmer.

NZF exercises agree-to-disagree provisions re this FTA. 🍿 www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

🏡 🌺 🌿

#rantsandreckons #unwrapped2025 🤓 A handful of scholarship and other contributions from this year.

A wise friend in the law suggested some must reads… #holidaytreats

Last chance to reply to some 2025 (and earlier) emails… 😬

#rantsandreckons #unwrapped2025 🤓 A handful of scholarship and other contributions from this year.

🙌🏼

Wow. 🍿

Phew.

Jane Austen used 'however' at the beginning of a sentence, and so can you.

Ōtara-Papatoetoe election re-do a 'nail in the coffin' for postal voting - law professor

So, will be interested to see how the judge worked around that (given the winning margin was 1200 votes). Also - note that this decision is final and can't be appealed/challenged in the High Court ... so, even if "wrong", it gets to stand.

FWIIW, I'm glad the decision came out this way as it sure looked like something very fishy had taken place. I was worried that previous precedent holding that you had to prove enough tainted votes were cast to change the result might mean the judge felt he couldn't intervene ...

🍿 (as @drdeanknight.bsky.social would put it)

When us process-heads warn about the importance of following systems and giving due weight to the how alongside the what, we have things like this in mind …

Celebrate! 🤓👨🏼‍🎓👩🏼‍🎓🧑🏽‍🎓🎉 #vicuniwgtngraduation

🤓

sigh.

Marco Rubio ordered diplomats to return to using Times New Roman font in official communications, calling his predecessor's decision to adopt Calibri a “wasteful” diversity move

Super hubby-proud of @alanwendt.bsky.social who stars in “Soro” — a short film imagining a future apology and further redress for the Dawn Raids by an unnamed prime minister, viewed through the medium of their NZSL interpreter. At the Ngutu Kākā gallery until 13.03.2026, alongside “Whakamoemoeā”.

#pubpolitics #thepanellive #backbenchersrevisited

#rumours ☕️

Too many laws passing without 'proper scrutiny', Geoffrey Palmer says

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Just released on the courts website in case anyone else is looking for it: www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases...

🍿 www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

Ousted Te Pāti Māori MP taking president to court

#conferenceduty 🤓 #G+TCentre at #UNSW

WLG > SYD Usual rule applies… don’t break the constitution etc! 🤓 PS doubly so, as yesterday’s war on localism is probably enough constitutional vandalism for the next month or so… sigh

BREAKING: PATHA has filed an urgent injunction in the high court seeking to prevent the puberty blocker ban from coming into force, as part of an urgent judicial review we are seeking to overturn the ban entirely.

The government is right that the current model of local government & local government funding is unsustainable. But its proposed solutions are pretty much guaranteed to make it worse, not better. Decent problem diagnosis, disastrous prescription.

The risk here is that freezes as at the date it comes into force whatever level of infrastructure deficit a council has, and most have really big ones. Add onto that the huge water bill the govt has sheeted entirely onto councils in its reforms & it's a recipe for pitted roads & shuttered libraries.

More localism lol? I can't believe this needs saying but apparently it does to Luxon: it's not appropriate to make comparisons between current CPI and rates increases when most rates increases are driven by the need to address decades of infrastructure deficits.

#poweroutage Thankfully we have plenty of scented candles to provide evening light… 🕯️🌈 🤦🏼‍♂️

This Bill could invalidate the votes of enough people to swing the next election in favour of the current government for no reason other than that they failed to fill out the correct piece of paper by the "proper" time (as defined by the people who benefit from the rule change).

Come join us at @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social — applications are open for lecturer/senior lecturer roles at our law school. 🤓 ejye.fa.ap1.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Dr Síofra O’Leary gives the Robin Cooke Lecture for 2025 at @vicuniwgtn.bsky.social on climate change and courts: role, limits and potential.

Please help me get the word out about the new websites for Legal Theory Blog and the Legal Theory Lexicon. Reposting here and on other social media sites is great. It would be especially helpful if law school faculty members could send an email to their colleagues with the new addresses.

Useful ruling from the Ombudsman on an extension decision, which reinforces a number of points. Specifically: * extensions cannot be used to cover staff absences. Organisations can't use their own administrative inefficiency to gain more time...

We should abolish juries because 1. The don't give reasons 2. There is little evidence of their competence 3. We don't use them outside a narrow area of the criminal law, other jurisdictions don't use them and are perfectly just /1