Courts (Remote Participation) Bill

I was about to conclude, when my previous call on the first reading of the Courts (Remote Participation) Bill was interrupted by the adjournment of the House. This bill will greatly reduce costs, and, moreover, significantly increase the number of cases to be brought before the courts. It will make the system function more efficiently and competently. The bill will also greatly reduce the stress on victims and witnesses, who usually have to wait for a long time before their cases are heard.

The introduction of an audiovisual link will improve court efficiency, and increase safety and security. It will also enhance the quality of evidence and access to justice. I fully support the bill and believe that it will bring about a vast improvement, and will be an excellent step forward for our justice system. I commend this bill to the House.

It is my pleasure to send us off with the last speech of the evening. I have been asked by my colleagues to give a rousing speech on the Courts (Remote Participation) Bill. I am not sure whether the subject really lends itself to that, but I will take my full 10 minutes, and I will be back on the first sitting day to take my extra 2 minutes.

I think this bill is an interesting advancement in the way that our criminal justice system operates at a practical level, and a bill by which I think we are playing a little bit of catch-up with some of our overseas jurisdictions. But I will touch on that a little later on. I think it is important to note that already in New Zealand we have the ability to use audiovisual links and audiovisual technology, but it is primarily isolated to situations where it is deemed appropriate for the benefit, as I understand it, of witnesses. This bill gives provision for that technology to be used much more widely. Labour supports the bill in its present form, but we want to issue some areas of caution that we wish to be discussed further in the select committee. At the moment, there are some very open presumptions in the bill that we think it would be wise to test and discuss in greater detail.

I will give an overview of the legislation. Perhaps for David Garrett I will highlight that Labour supports this bill, but I think it is wise to raise the issues with which we have some ongoing concerns. The bill, as it sits currently, sets out some areas of criteria for consideration. It is reasonably flexible, in that it says there is a presumption in favour of the use of audiovisual links in criminal procedural matters. Primarily, the Government’s aim here is obviously to use audiovisual links in areas where no evidence is being presented, and I think it is quite obvious why that situation may be the case. Where evidence is presented, it is difficult for people to get a full grasp of what is being presented in the court; if they are on a video link, they do not have a full view of the court, and of various matters going on within that court. I think that that criterion makes sense. The bill allows for the use of audiovisual links in criminal substantive matters when evidence is being presented, and I will reflect on that a little later on. It also allows for the use of audiovisual links in civil matters when the party’s consent is given.

The commentary on the bill points out that this legislation is one of the first steps to be taken in the reform of criminal justice procedure. I just reflect on the fact that this legislation, in conjunction with the Judicial Matters Bill that we debated earlier on, talks in a very piecemeal way about reforms to the criminal justice system. Given that various Cabinet Ministers have talked about the need for criminal justice reform, perhaps it would be useful and wise for the Government to deliver some vision as to what that would look like. At the moment we tend to be dealing with it in a very piecemeal and incoherent way. I think it would be useful for this House to understand the wider vision that the Government has for this area, and what kind of major reforms it eventually intends to make. That would be a useful thing for the Government to do; I guess I will just leave that challenge with Government members.

I want to reflect on the regulatory impact statement that has been provided with this bill. These statements are fast becoming one of my favourite areas of debate when we come to a bill, because often they are such a hodgepodge mix of sometimes scant detail right through to no detail, or else there is no regulatory impact statement, at all. This one has a few key elements, but is without any real information. I continue to be baffled as to why we have a Minister for Regulatory Reform, yet we are unable at the most basic level to fulfil a requirement for regulatory impact statements—

💬 Grant Robertson: Who is the Minister?

That would be the Hon Rodney Hide, who has seen himself through quite a few bills that have had absolutely no decent regulatory impact statements. The most important part of this, probably, is the cost of current arrangements—the part of the regulatory impact statements that set out where the savings will be realised. If people are asked why we are using audiovisual link technology, they will assume that it is probably because it will ultimately save us some cash—that we will not be transporting prisoners around between courts for short procedural matters, or the like. So we might assume that that is the core reason for the bill. If that is the case, we would assume that the Government knows how much will be saved, yet I see no evidence of that in respect of this legislation. In fact, the commentary on the bill itself, under the heading “Costs of current arrangements”, states: “Having all court participants physically present involves financial and other costs. These include—costs to witnesses … the costs of transporting prisoners”, and, finally, the “expected growth in prisoners on remand, creating a flow-on in demand for court appearances …”.

I wonder secretly whether that third bullet point is the real reason for this bill—there are just too many people to ship around at the moment. If we are going to start using vans as prisons—we use containers for prisoners, so why would we not use vans as prisons—it would be easy if we just whopped some video links in the back of a van, and there we had it. We could do everything from the one spot: house prisoners, trial them, everything—a one-stop shop for criminal justice.

I raise this point because when I was a member of staff seconded to the UK Home Office for a short piece of work that looked at bureaucracy in the criminal justice system, and at areas where savings might be made, a thing called “virtual courts” was being trialled in the UK. A review of policing that I was part of at the time was looking into the impact of virtual courts. The virtual court in the UK was a first hearing held in the Magistrate’s Court, in which the defendant appeared in the court by means of a video link from the police station. The documents required for that were electronically stored and shared between the agencies involved. There are two points there. It was found, after virtual courts were set up, that the cost savings the authorities thought would appear were not actually realised, due to the costs of setting up the audiovisual links and using them. They were not always used as adequately as they could have been, because sometimes the judiciary did not wish to use them. That situation is something that this bill would still allow, as far as I can read it: the judiciary could be flexible in terms of whether it picked up this technology.

The electronic sharing of information is also an area where some of the cost savings will be realised, so unless we start moving further down that track we may not see the full benefit of audiovisual links. The wider point, though, is that if we are going to use this technology, we need to be cautious that we use it in an appropriate way, and that we do not undermine the right of an individual defendant to have a full hearing in front of a court, if that is what a particular case requires—if a case requires, for instance, that evidence is heard in the flesh.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.