Torrent Freak reports that in a decision that according to Kim Dotcom makes "the New Zealand judiciary… a US owned dancing bear" (archived) an Appellate court in New Zealand has denied Dotcom's petition to delay his extradition hearing in order to allow him and his counsel adequate preparation time. It was only on June 3rd of this year that Kim Dotcom finally had a victory in the United State's asset forfeiture case which allowed him the resources to seriously begin preparing a defense against the United States effort to extradite him to a a land which has always been foreign to him.

Dotcom's extradition hearing is scheduled to be heard next week barring any further relief for Dotcom. The court's reason for denying the request for more time to prepare for the extradition hearing was the volume of submissions to them make a consideration of all claims "impossible" given the time sensitive nature of the request such that:

The Court cannot resolve this argument with the speed it aims to accord fast track matters, let alone in a judgment that, in the circumstances of this case, must be given urgently… That implies no criticism of the parties. It is simply that this Court does not have the resources urgently to resolve a dispute which is not straightforward and involves fundamental disagreement between the parties.

And so in a case which has been pending for four years of which the defendant has only had three months to afford counsel and mount a defense, the Appellate court has found that the complexity of the case is too great for them to delay it. This decision raises serious questions about what the working definition of the word "justice" is among legal professionals in the Anglophone world.