A man denied compensation after his own murder conviction was quashed believes David Bain is unlikely to receive compensation from the Government.
Rex Haig's application for compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment was rejected by the Government last year.
Mr Haig, convicted in 1995 for the murder of Mark Roderique on his fishing boat off the West Coast, had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2006, after spending 10 years in prison.
But after a QC's report cast doubt on his innocence, Justice Minister Simon Power declined the compensation application.
Mr Haig told Radio Live he didn't trust the Justice Ministry, and didn't believe Mr Bain's application for compensation would be successful.
In the past it had been awarded only if someone was believed to be innocent on the balance of probability, rather than simply found not guilty.
Mr Power yesterday said he had received a compensation claim from Mr Bain's lawyers.
Mr Bain spent 13 years in jail after being convicted in 1995 of murdering parents, Robin and Margaret, sisters Laniet and Arawa and brother Stephen in their Dunedin home.
In 2007, the Privy Council quashed his convictions on the grounds of a substantial miscarriage of justice and ordered a retrial.
In June last year he was found not guilty at the retrial, after his defence team argued Robin shot the family, before turning the gun on himself.
Asked if he thought Mr Bain's compensation claim would succeed, Mr Haig said: "No, I don't".
"My experience with the Ministry of Justice and the Crown Law office and the Government justice system and part of the judiciary -- the chief justice and all that -- I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.
"And the obvious thing, the obvious fact with David Bain is that Joe Karam and David fought the justice system in New Zealand for years and got nowhere, then they went to the Privy Council who ordered a retrial.
"Now David is back with the New Zealand justice system and this Cabinet criteria nonsense and I don't believe he'll get dealt fairly with."
There is no legal right to compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment but the Government can, in its discretion, compensate someone by making an ex gratia payment.
David Dougherty received $868,728 after his rape conviction was overturned in 1997.
A High Court jury had found Mr Dougherty guilty of the rape in 1993 and he was jailed for seven years after the girl identified him as her attacker.
He was freed at retrial in 1997 after a jury accepted new DNA evidence that seminal stains in the girl's underwear could not belong to him.
