Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill

Members, when we were last debating this bill, Jacqui Dean had the call and has 4 minutes 30 seconds remaining, if she wishes to speak. The Hon Phil Goff.

I do not blame Jacqui Dean for not taking up the call. It is a fairly insubstantial bill and it is very hard for a Government member to fill in 10 minutes speaking on it.

💬 Jacqui Dean: Oh, I made a brilliant speech.

Having said that and wound the member up, as I intended, I need to say that Labour supports this bill. When I said that it is insubstantial, I mean it was not of sufficient impact to warrant a regulatory impact analysis or statement, so that is simply a statement of fact. It is not a significant bill. It has been sitting on the Order Paper for 18 months since it was introduced, so the Government has not been in any hurry to pass it.

The bill does some useful things that bear comment, but it is not going to shake the world. The first thing that it does is that it prevents people who have served home detention sentences for 3 months or more from qualifying for jury service for 5 years. I think that is a sensible provision. It brings it into line with the fact that if you have served a jail sentence, you are prevented from serving on a jury, and there is a very good reason for that. If you are the sort of person who has committed an offence serious enough to have home detention for more than 3 months, you are not really in a great position to stand in judgment of another person’s guilt or innocence for that period of time. So I do not think there was any great controversy around that. I think it deals with a problem in the earlier Act and it closes a loophole.

The second thing that the bill does is to empower registrars to permanently excuse from jury service people who either have chronic ill health or are 65 years or over. Where a person has chronic ill health, it makes sense that there be a permanent excusal. If the person is repeatedly ill, they are not going to be in a position to serve and it is a burden on them and a cause of anxiety if they keep getting summonses to appear on juries.

The question of an over-65-year-old was somewhat more controversial when discussed at the Law and Order Committee. That was because from Labour’s point of view, although we acknowledge that there is nothing in this bill that says a person over the age of 65 cannot serve, the bill as it was originally introduced said that if you are permanently excused because you are over 65, then that is it—you will never, and you can never, go on a jury again. We had some problems with that. One is that it stereotyped older people and suggested that when you get to 65 you are past serving on a jury—and I am sure you would agree, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, that you are not past serving on a jury. In fact, in 20 years’ time there is going to be something like a million people over that age and if you are going to have a jury of your peers, you are going to need to have a lot of those people with considerable experience, and, most important, a little more time than others in the community, to serve on the jury.

I think the real problem we are going to have with juries is that as more and more people seek to be excused because they have to work, they cannot afford the time off, or the jury fees are not sufficient for them to serve on a jury for a week or 2 weeks without suffering from financial hardship, you might find that your juries become less and less representative of the communities.

But, anyway, our problem was—and the report from the select committee suggested that the select committee was uneasy with the fact—that once you had been excused because you are over 65, you could not reverse that process. Well, finally, the Minister of Justice saw sense on that and she introduced Supplementary Order Paper 94. That enables people who are excused permanently from jury service because they are of, or over, the age of 65 to resume being qualified and liable for jury service by having their permanent excusals cancelled as of right on a written application. I think that was a sensible thing to do, and that resolved the concerns that we had with that particular aspect.

The third thing was a more serious problem, and that was the concern that defendants could have access to the jury list. The jury list provides the name, the occupation, the birth date, and the address of members on a jury. If a lawyer representing a defendant has access to that information, the lawyer is conscious of the obligations on him or her and is liable to keep that information secure and not divulge it to the person whom they are representing.

But we have a problem—and it is going to be a growing problem because of cut-backs to legal aid—in that more and more people are representing themselves in court. I do not think that is a good idea, and I do not think judges think it is a good idea, because it makes the court process more drawn-out. If you are going to have a fair trial and a person does not understand the law but they are representing themselves, it will take much longer, it will cost a whole lot more, and you will find that the cuts to legal aid are actually pretty counter-productive.

💬 Hon Shane Jones: False economics.

It is false economics, as my colleague Shane Jones has just commented. The provision that has been made in this bill is as a result of a man who was representing himself in court who had access to the jury list and subsequently decided that he would contact one or more of the jurors. That is a situation that cannot be tolerated, and it is a contempt of court.

This bill makes an effort to try to improve the privacy of jurors by ensuring that a defendant who is representing himself or herself does not have access to the particulars of the jury list. That is good—we support that—but let us not exaggerate the degree of protection that that will provide to the jurors. A person who is a defendant is going to be in court to hear the names of the people called out in the courtroom, and it does not take much of a detective act to then—well, if your name is John Smith, I suppose it might provide a difficulty in determining which John Smith in the phone book or on the electoral roll is the John Smith who was on the jury. But if you have a name like—I think I have mentioned it once before—Lindsay Tisch, there is not a lot of them about, and you would be able to—

H V Ross Robertson: Hope not!

That is unfair coming from an Assistant Speaker, Mr Robertson. But you are not going to have much difficulty in tracking that person down.

So although this bill is worthwhile in what it does, it does not apply a great deal of effort or imagination to how you stop people googling somebody, how you stop them looking up the electoral roll or the telephone book, and I think that it leaves the problem at best only partially addressed.

So let us sum up what we have got in this bill. We have a situation where you can treat people who have been on home detention in the same way as you would treat a person who has served a jail sentence, and that would be that you prevent them from serving on a jury for a period of time. You have the empowerment of registrars to excuse people who cannot and do not want to serve on a jury for a very good reason, but we have compensated for that by saying that an older person who is excused can apply to come back on to the jury list, and you have partial protection for the privacy, safety, and security of jurors, but just that—only a very partial protection.

So this is a bill that we will support, but this is a bill that is not going to make a huge difference to the system of justice in this country. It deserves a third reading. The Labour Party in Opposition has supported the bill through each of its readings, and will support it in the third reading, but it is not going to have earth-shattering consequences for the jury system and the people within it.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. This bill has three main purposes. One is to prevent certain people sentenced to home detention from serving on a jury. The second is to empower registrars to permanently excuse people with chronic ill health, with a permanent disability, or who are over the age of 65, if they choose to be permanently excused, from jury service. Thirdly, it seeks to protect more stringently the address particulars of jurors, which I think is a laudable goal.

I would echo the comments just made by the Hon Phil Goff, who made quite a great case that actually this bill probably does not go far enough in today’s world of quick information, particularly in the context of reducing availability of access to justice, whether that be through downsizing community law centres or reducing people’s ability to access legal aid, which will likely result in an increase in the number of defendants who are self-representing. It is entirely possible that we will see increased occurrences of defendants trying to access jurors, and that is certainly something we want to discourage.

The other main purpose that I would like to speak to—because it came up and was quite controversial in the Committee stage of the bill—was the question of whether or not it is discriminatory to allow people over the age of 65 to be permanently excused from jury service if they elect to be permanently excused. During that debate we heard arguments from the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party that it was discriminatory, but we found it hard to see how it would be discriminatory, because it simply gave those people the choice. They already had the ability to be excused from jury service every single time they received a call to be on a jury, and on every single occasion they would have to apply for dispensation. So this provision was giving the registrar the power to say that those people who had decided that they did not have the capacity, desire, or ability to serve on a jury would have the ability to make that application just once and not have to continually send in letters. Also, thanks to the Minister of Justice’s acceptance of a suggestion that my colleague David Clendon made during his second reading speech, there was the addition to the bill of a provision whereby if somebody had applied for this permanent dispensation from jury service and they changed their mind, they could be put back on the roll. We thought that that was quite reasonable.

But I think there is a significant public policy question, which was raised by some of my colleagues on this side of the House. It is a separate question, and it is not one that is addressed by this particular bill. It is whether we are doing enough to ensure that the population of New Zealand is able to serve on a jury, that they are empowered to serve on a jury, and that it is a thing of civic pride to actually be on a jury. The right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers is fundamental to our concept of democracy. It is true that as we go forward, as we have an increasingly ageing population, and as we face all sorts of pressure that families and working adults are under, so they are often not able to serve on a jury because there simply is not the financial ability for them to take that much time off work, we are going to have to do a lot of thinking as a nation as to how we make it possible and attractive for people of all ages to serve on juries, so that we do continue to have this right to be judged by a jury of our peers.

In conclusion, the Green Party has no problem supporting this bill as it stands. We voted for it at all stages, but we do think we are going to be facing challenges that are not addressed by this bill. It is really essential and fundamental to our democracy and the health of democracy that we find ways of addressing these issues about, on the one hand, access to justice and, on the other hand, the attractiveness of jury service to the citizens of New Zealand. Thank you. We commend this bill to the House.

Thank you for the opportunity. This bill, the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill, is a good bill. It will be good to see it pass through its third reading—hopefully, tonight.

I think it is rather unfair to characterise the bill as being inconsequential. I do not think that the juror whose details were utilised by a defendant, where that defendant wrote to the person to give them a good scare, would think that a change like this is inconsequential. There is an important change that is being made here whereby jurors’ address details, their personal details, will be kept confidential and will not be able to be passed to the defendant. Even if the defendants are defending themselves, they will not be able to see the jurors’ details, and it would even be an offence for a lawyer representing them to pass the details on to them. We do need to take it very seriously that jurors’ private and confidential details, their address details, should be kept confidential to them and should not be passed on to a defendant, because there is the potential—it has happened before—that a defendant may misuse that information.

Also, I think we should take seriously the changes that we are making around those aged 65 and older. I have heard the comments throughout the second reading, the Committee stage, and earlier tonight about 65-year-olds. I struggle to see the argument that some are making, that it could be discriminatory, because at the end of the day those people will be choosing whether or not they wish to be excused permanently. It is completely at their choice. No one is going to force them to be excused permanently. If they decide for themselves that they feel they are in a position where they wish to be excused permanently from a jury, they can choose that. No one will be forcing it on them.

Otherwise, these issues have been well canvassed by the House previously. It is a good little bill. I would not say it is inconsequential. It has got some important changes for those serving on a jury. It will be good when it is passed. Thank you.

With one exception, which relates to the exemption as of right for people over 65 years, New Zealand First supports the bill, the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I would like to deal with Part 2 first, with the provisions relating to the protection of jurors from invasion of their privacy, especially, of course, by accused persons and those acting for them.

We think it is high time that provisions of this kind were put into legislation to protect jurors from the release of private information relating to them, especially, of course, their address or addresses. We do not think this compromises the right of the accused to challenge for cause or without cause, and where an accused represents themselves a barrister can be appointed under this new law to handle juror challenges. It all seems to be perfectly sensible to us. These measures assist jurors to maintain their privacy, and for that reason may help to arrest the unpopularity of jury service. As we know, four out of five people called for jury service seek to avoid it, which I suppose is not surprising. People lead busy lives and do not wish to spend this magnitude of time on this sort of task. But it is an important public duty, and our justice system depends on people doing that duty.

So as I said, it is high time we had this bill to ensure information about jurors is restricted, as it is, to eligible persons. The registrar must not reveal the protected particulars, as defined in the bill, to anyone other than an eligible person, a judge, necessary members of the court staff, and so on. The registrar must take reasonable steps to see that a prohibited person cannot copy the particulars.

So without going into a great deal more detail, it is obvious to see that there are some important and really worthwhile provisions in the bill relating to privacy and the protection of jurors from the publication of information concerning them. As we know, there have been problems from time to time with that over recent years. But I would like to turn now to Part 1. Part 1, of course, relates to excusals and disqualifications. New Zealand First does support the new provisions concerning disqualifications, especially the disqualification of a person on home detention for over 3 months within the last 5 years, which we think is consistent with disqualification for imprisonment. New Zealand First also supports most of the new provisions relating to excusal, especially those relating to excusal for health reasons.

But New Zealand First does not support new section 15A(2) in clause 10, which grants an exemption as of right, on application, by a person over 65 years of age—the registrar must excuse such a person as of right. Compare that, for example, with section 15A(1)—the registrar may excuse, at the discretion therefore of the registrar, for other reasons, such as state of health. This distinction does not seem to be very sensible to us. In fact, there are four reasons we see why the 65 years provision in section 15A(2) should not be there.

First of all, there is a matter of principle—an important one, though—which is ageism. Ageism is rife in the community, and this bill will further entrench it. Those people who are trying to get work, for example, after reaching the age of 60, let alone 65, would find that very difficult to do. It is one of those things we in this House should be combating rather than encouraging, yet this legislation encourages it.

The argument was recently made by a speaker just before me that this is only an option. However, if that was correct in principle, then it would be correct at any age and not at the age of 65 only. Worse still, the amendment will make it possible to come off the jury list, then go back on it, then off again, on again, and so on. Nor should it do that. It is not very sensible. People, whether they are 65 or over, or under 65, as I have said, have a duty to perform jury service if they are able to do so. Over-65-year-olds are just as often able to do so as those who are, for example, 60 years of age.

The problem here is that using 65 years only as a reason for exemption is not a substantive reason. After all, a person over 65 would still be able to apply for exemption on the grounds of ill health, under the bill. Secondly, we think it is irrational to single out over-65-year-olds. They are not disabled by that age for reasons of mental incapacity, physical incapacity, or indeed any other incapacity. In fact, the opposite is the case. A person of 65 years of age or over has a wealth of life experience to offer for jury service. That makes them actually more valuable, rather than less valuable, as a juror than younger people.

Thirdly, the retirement age is actually irrelevant. Why pick that age simply because it is the age of eligibility for superannuation? What on earth has that got to do with it? Nothing whatsoever. They are better equipped, from the point of view of experience and judgment, to be a juror than much younger people are. For all of those reasons New Zealand First feels that that particular provision should not be in the bill. However, that is not in itself sufficient reason to vote against it. We are disappointed that that provision has survived to the end. However, we do believe that the other provisions in the bill relating to excusals and exemptions and relating to the protection of the details and particulars of jurors are very sensible and well overdue.

For those reasons New Zealand First will be supporting the bill and voting in favour of it, even though it does contain that rather objectionable provision, which we think is ageist, relating to 65-year-olds and over. For that reason, as I said, New Zealand First will support the bill, but we do hope that in the course of time people will see that that particular provision relating to 65-year-olds is not correct and eventually will be removed, and we would be in favour of the bill as a whole. As it is, however, the bill is sensible and we will be supporting it.

It is a pleasure to take a call on the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Congratulations, Minister Collins, for bringing a bill to the House that improves both the system’s administration and the integrity of maintaining juries’ privacy, safety, and security.

Part 1 of the bill is very good in that it tightens up rules around disqualifying people from jury service who have been sentenced to home detention for 3 months or more in the preceding 5 years. It provides both judges and registrars the discretion to excuse people from appearing as jurors if they meet the criteria as laid out in the bill.

Part 2 of the bill deals with the removal of addresses of potential jurors from jury lists, and prevents the accused from ever seeing potential jurors’ addresses by prohibiting the defence lawyer or court appointed adviser from showing the addresses to the accused. It can be daunting and intimidating for members of the public to embark upon jury service. For many it may be their first experience in a courtroom setting, and to give them the peace of mind that their personal information is protected is very important.

People over 65 can be permanently excused, if requested in writing. This is a very good clause in the bill, as it gives retirees a choice. Many will choose to be available for jury service, but others will be able to remove the stress of worrying about having to appear as a juror. People over 65 are still very active in our communities, and many of our important voluntary and community services are kept afloat by our senior Kiwis. There will still be many over-65s who will choose to take on jury service, but it is great that they will have a choice.

Again, I would like to congratulate the Hon Judith Collins on this bill, which is part of a comprehensive programme of reform that is making Kiwis safer. Thank you.

Can I congratulate Mr Mitchell on his remembering his lines so well, and also the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, on her impeccable timing in coming into the House at just the right moment to hear that particular comment not once but twice today. I would like to tell the Minister that that probably has been the highlight of the third reading of this Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill—yes indeed, of the third reading of this bill. One would have expected, you know, that at the end of an important process like this, which has taken, I heard somebody say, about 18 months, we would have members of the Government stand up and dutifully take their full time to defend and explain. I am sure that the backbenchers, particularly, would have the time to explain to those who are listening that here they are, making the arguments, showing their understanding of the bill in detail, showing how it really improves our justice system, and that that is what they would do. But that is not what we have heard. We actually have heard very, very short speeches, and no real defence of this bill. Again, as I said to Mr Mitchell, not once but twice repeating the congratulations to his Minister as a way of ensuring that the 2 minutes were taken up fully is a learning in itself.

But there are, as both you and I, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, will understand, some important provisions in this bill particularly to do with age. I guess some difficulty had been perceived with the age of 65, and with some people finding it difficult to get to fulfilling the request to attend for jury service. So the bill has addressed that, and I think that is a good thing. You know, in this day and age as the demography in that particular bracket is changing—remember, the 65-year-old today is the 45-year-old of yesterday—I wondered whether that had been factored in. But I guess that some of the adjustments have been made. There is the option of the over-65s staying on the list, and that is a good thing. But I do believe that I would not want to see 65-year-olds written off just yet. I think the Hon Phil Goff makes a good statement that with the change in our demography this age group still has a longer shelf life and a much more important role to play in the future, and I think that also ought to be taken into account.

The second provision of the bill is that there is a loophole that had been identified. People who were on home detention were somehow still caught by jury service, so the bill fixes that up, and, you know, that is a good thing. Thirdly, probably the most serious part of this bill is the accidental release—I guess, defendants being accidentally made aware of information about jurors—

💬 Jacqui Dean: This member should have read the bill.

I beg your pardon?

💬 Jacqui Dean: I said this member should have read the bill.

This member has read the bill, and this member is going to take the full call. If that member would like to take a call and explain what I am missing out, that would be great, because I do not know what the member is talking about. But certainly there is, indeed, the opportunity for that not to happen.

💬 Jacqui Dean: It is not accidental; it is deliberate, but the member does not understand that.

Well, that member seems to understand a lot. Why does the member not take a full-time call, like none of the Government members have done, and explain? Maybe I have got it wrong, and maybe the member will take the next call and explain that. Will the member, Jacqui Dean—will you do that? Will you take the next one and explain? Then do be quiet, because I do have a serious point to make as well. You can chip away, chip away for next to nothing, but take a call—that would be quite nice. There is plenty of time. We are here until 10 o’clock, and I am sure that member might like to use that as well. But, certainly, the bit that has not been factored in—

💬 Jacqui Dean: That member doesn’t understand Standing Orders either.

—instead of chipping in, Jacqui Dean might like to listen—because there still is, as others have also said, the opportunity for somebody, a defendant, to get that information by other means, and I am not sure that this particular amendment has taken that into account.

So those are the three provisions. But, perhaps much more seriously, these provisions seem to be somewhat reactionary, and one has to reflect on the justice portfolio and the justice policies that are coming up. Here is a bill with three provisions taking 18 months to get this far, and one wonders why. Is this how we are going to do justice, with little bits and pieces every now and again? Maybe that does reflect the Government’s approach to justice, because often the Government will very quickly respond to something so as to give a perception of it being tough on crime, and there is an element of that in this particular bill, especially with information about jurors becoming available. So there is that tendency of the Government to react to something, to be seen to take a very strong line, and to link it to the Government being tough on everything else.

But this bill has languished for 18 months. It was not that important, but it is hardly a well-thought-out set of provisions around the justice portfolio that we can see in this particular bill, because we do not. What we see, like we have seen in other places in the justice portfolio as well, is bits and pieces coming through, and bits and pieces going out, but a well-thought-out set of provisions in the justice area is not what we see.

Perhaps we ought not to be surprised, because that is also the approach of the Government in other areas as well. I liken this one to the attempt to bring in a code of social responsibility for welfare beneficiaries, and I am only just likening those two one to the other, because here in a sense is this notion of being tough on crime. There we can see that there are approaches to sounding tough on welfare beneficiaries, being very, very punitive, knowing, if we are to take the Minister’s comments on Q+A over the weekend, that there is no point at all, there is no provision at all, and there is no ability at all to service that. In the same way, this bill is the same. This bill is addressing something to make a bit of noise, to get a bit of limelight, to be seen to be tough on crime, but in the end it does not go very far. The provisions of this bill do not represent a comprehensive approach to a number of the things that in the justice area need to be examined and need to be looked at. That is the ideology of Government. That is the way it has approached it.

There is no reason not to support this bill, but there is every reason to use the third reading of the bill to reflect on the extent to which the members of the Government have been reluctant to defend this bill, to defend this bill in any great detail—apart from somebody chipping in every now and again—to defend these provisions in any significant way. Simply to take a 2-minute call—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Only 2 minutes to go!

I am sure Jacqui Dean will soon take a call and put me right where I have got something wrong. I doubt it will happen—I doubt it will happen—but I do invite the member to take a call. There is plenty of time and there is another National call still to come—

💬 Jacqui Dean: Minute and a half!

It will take that to explain that, so please do that. The member might also like to show how this is not a piecemeal approach to the justice portfolio. But there is not enough here for us not to support the bill, so we will be supporting it. Thank you.

It is a great pleasure to take a very brief call on this bill, the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. I cannot help but comment on the last speaker’s comments about the Government taking 18 months to get the bill here, when the last speaker, Dr Rajen Prasad, spent 10 minutes speaking about all sorts of things and about 2 minutes speaking about the bill.

I have got no problem defending this bill. I think it is a very good piece of legislation. It extends the Government’s great record in respect of law and order, and it sets juries up for them to be, I guess, much easier and much more likely to attract people to jury service in the future. So I have got no problems supporting this bill, and it is a great pleasure doing so.

This is a split call. I will ring the bell at 4 minutes.

Thank you.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: This is the relaxation tape starting. Sit back and chill back, everybody.

That probably reflects well the attitudes of the National backbenchers.

I rise to take a call to support this bill, the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Having listened to the contributions from members across the board, it is fitting for me to wrap up. Basically, the bill addresses three main issues. Firstly, it allows certain people to be excused from jury service on the basis, for example, of their disability or their health, or if they are over the age of 65. The Human Rights Commission is of the view that the proposed amendment will have the effect of perpetuating stereotypical ideas about older people’s ability to contribute constructively to society. The National Council of Women of New Zealand had reservations with regard to the proposed changes. The New Zealand Law Society also emphasised that the fundamental principle that must underlie all criminal justice legislation is that the right to a fair trial is an absolute right.

Secondly, it prevents persons who have served a home detention sentence of at least 3 months from qualifying for jury service for 5 years. There is a loophole in the Sentencing Amendment Act 2007, which created home detention as a sentence in its own right, but failed to amend the Juries Act. This means that those who have served or are serving a sentence of home detention could still sit on a jury panel.

Thirdly, as the title of the second part of the bill suggests, it provides protection of particulars of jury list information, in order to maintain the privacy, safety, and security of jurors. Much has been said about the incident where a self-representing accused corresponded with persons whose names and addresses were on the jury panel for his trial. This raised concern about the privacy, safety, and security of jurors, and it was therefore decided to amend the Juries Act to restrict access to jurors’ details.

Although the bill is limited in its real impact, it does introduce some necessary changes, and it is worth supporting. Thank you.

Are there any further speakers?

Sorry, I thought the members would take the opportunity to speak more on this bill, the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Can I just say, as a former police officer, that the importance of juries cannot be overstated in the New Zealand justice system. This bill really goes to the heart of providing pragmatic measures to ensure their safety, and that the way in which they interact with the justice system can be achieved as best it can in the service of justice. So that is a win-win not only for jury members, in my view, in terms of the changes being made here but also, I believe, for justice as it stands in this country.

There have been some comments made about it not going far enough, it going too far, and it taking too long to get to the House. I suspect that it has more to do with members on the Opposition benches trying to find a way to fill up 10 minutes than it has to do with this bill. This bill will make good sense to New Zealand citizens, and I have no problem in commending this bill to the House, and commending the Minister of Justice for her work. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.