Hajnal case adjourned to next month

Yesterday the Courier-Mail had this to say about a hearing in the Beenleigh Magistrate's Court on that day. The case was adjourned until 29 February.

I'm indebted to an activist for passing that information to me. Another, who was at the court, offers these comments for your additional information—

Hajnal Black was in court yesterday fighting allegations brought against her by the State Government. The allegations are in regard to bank accounts, property interest and transactions that were not disclosed to Logan City Council as required by law. Hajnal was defending herself against the charges.

Hajnal prides herself on being a Barrister and has defended her credentials with great vigour when questioned in Council meetings. She has also talked about representing people in the past. Given the way in which she sometimes conducts herself in Council meetings, when she is there, I went along to the court and was expecting to see a fired-up Hajnal with very good legal arguments. However it was just the opposite.

From early-on during the hearing two things became very clear. One was she appeared to have no defence to the allegations brought against her and the other was she should not have represented herself.

Hajnal was unable to argue points of law, which frustrated the judge. She appeared flustered, nervous and was incredibly ill-prepared. At one time she argued the point that she was not supplied copies of emails that the prosecution may or may not present to court during the trial. When the judge asked who these emails were between, she replied that she was one of the parties to whom the emails were sent from or to.

It was painful to watch the judge remind her of the bleeding obvious. Which was, surely, if Mrs Black was the recipient or sender of such emails then Mrs Black could simply search her own files for them. One of many times Hajnal’s head fell low and papers were shuffled.

At one point the judge had to raise his voice and tell Hajnal to be quiet. I started to wonder if Hajnal’s credentials are nothing more than sitting through a dozen episodes of Judge Judy. Hanjal’s husband, Sean, made a brief appearance. During one of Hajnal’s poor arguments, which was not going in her favour, Sean Black calmly stood up and took a few steps towards the judge. After about 30 seconds the Judge asked him to leave or sit down. Sean explained that due to his wife being flustered she had forgotten something important that he wanted to remind her of.

This time, in a more threatening voice, the Judge said, “Sit down or get out”.

With the help of the judge and the prosecution she did, however, get a few week's adjournment. Hajnal seemed to be pushing for a date after council elections, possibly because, if convicted, I believe she would be unable to stand.

I suspect the prosecution did not oppose the adjournment as they claimed their case is very strong and they do not want to give Hajnal Black the benefit of being able to say she did not have enough time to prepare for the trial.

The whole experience was painful to watch but at the same time a bit sad. This is a self-proclaimed power-couple of politics whose political careers appear to be going very quickly down the toilet. President Nixon once said, “When the president does it, that means it is not illegal”. I can’t help but think these two have the same attitude.