The lawyer for an alleged fraudster fighting extradition to Poland earned a shower of rebukes from Supreme Court judges at a hearing in Wellington today.
Representing convicted fraudster Slawomir Ryszard Bujak, Evgeny Orlov repeatedly referred to documents only he could find, obfuscated his own points and argued over minor semantic differences between New Zealand and Polish law.
Chief Justice Sian Elias told Mr Orlov off for the disorganised state of his submitted documents, saying his case was "in chaos".
He tried to palm the blame off onto his assistant, saying he had given the documents to his colleague to assemble and bind.
Later Mr Orlov was told he was not making sense and to stay on the topic.
"Now you are muddying the only decent points you have. Could you just get on with it? You are your own worst enemy," Justice Andrew Tipping told him.
Later, Justice Tipping told him off again, saying: "We have already been round and round and round this mulberry bush."
Bujak, a Polish immigrant living in New Zealand, is fighting extradition to his homeland to face a raft of fraud-related offences from a decade ago, worth over $US1 million ($NZ1.78 million).
He argued that extradition was a breach of his human rights.
His three-year battle has already been through the High Court and two Appeals Court hearings.
The Supreme Court reserved its judgment.
