Not trolling.
These are all arguments to be made.
Like I said, it's an ad hoc judiciary and I don't know much about it. I also asked yesterday if it adheres to common or civil law principles, which would help me understand it. Only one person responded to that yesterday and they didn't answer the question at all.
If common law principles, you argue EVERYTHING. If you are legally representing Prior you would argue no intent (a grey area open to interpretation that Prior's legal representation should exploit to his advantage), Thurston is fine (if you get caught for DUI and don't injure anyone, the penalty is less, for example). You would even argue his clean record, off-field charity work he has done for the Joanne Mackay Foundation, and the fact he is mourning his brother's death. All this to keep the punishment to the original send off and automatic five week penalty
If civil law principles the send-off and five weeks (which apparantly is in the mandate of the judiciary as he got referred straight away) is what he should get. Civil law has set penalties for certain offences.
It seems this ad hoc judiciary has set punishments but not set offences. So it is a mixture of common and civil law principles.
What worries me is the Dragons are going to fork out large dollars for legal representation, they are going to go in front of this ad hoc tribunal, who is supposed to have impartial judges (who have no legal training), and these impartial judges are going to 'make an example'...something that should NEVER happen in either common or civil law jurisdictions
It all seems a pointless exercise.
I'm trying to highlight the ineffectiveness and inconsistencies built into NRL judiciary. Something the ARLC should correct.
