Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill

I move, That the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill promotes a fair, efficient, and modern justice system and I am grateful for the support it has received from this House and during the select committee process. The Justice and Electoral Committee has made minor technical changes from the original bill as it was introduced, but it has fundamentally retained the status quo and its changes still protect current rights of appeal, ensuring that this bill retains and will achieve its purpose: the protection of the “great writ”. The “great writ” will be protected from improper use and this ensures that we have an effective justice system. Habeas corpus is an ancient writ, requiring a person in State detention to be brought before a judge or court to determine whether their detention is lawful. Its importance throughout history is almost unparalleled, with its first recorded use occurring in the 14th century. It is for exactly this reason that the improper use of the writ must be not be allowed to continue.

In 1997 the Law Commission made recommendations to simplify the procedure for dealing with habeas corpus applications. The Habeas Corpus Act in 2001 implemented the changes recommended in this report and for the first time formalised habeas corpus in legislation. However, since then practical experience has revealed several anomalies in the application of the legislation. For example, the 2001 Act required habeas corpus applications to be given precedence over all other court business. This left it open to misuse in some cases. In 2007, following consultation with the judiciary and the Government agencies, the Law Commission issued a report addressing these concerns. The bill incorporates the changes recommended in that report.

This bill will allow the High Court or a judge of the High Court to be able to dispense with the rule that habeas corpus applications take precedence over all other business. It will ensure the easier transfer of applications to the Family Court where appropriate. It will provide for a judge to be able to dismiss applications that are statute barred or use incorrect procedure, and will allow procedural improvements such as holding pre-hearing conferences and hearings by technology authorised by rules of the court. These changes address issues that have clogged courts, failed to evolve with technological improvements, and dragged down the position of the “great writ”. This bill will address these issues. I am proud that this bill fits within this Government’s programmes to streamline our courts and ensure they are used for their proper purpose, and I would like to congratulate the Hon Chester Borrows on the work he has done in our court system. It has been exemplary, and it was a great privilege to be with him down in Westland at Whataroa courthouse.

I would like to close with this statement. Freedom from arbitrary arrest is a fundamental right. It is vital to our health as a nation that this is protected. This bill does not do anything to diminish the substance of this right. What it does do is ensure that this right is not conflated into a “get out of jail free” card for any situation. It is not. I thank the House for its time and call on all members to support this bill and to support a fair, efficient, and modern justice system. Thank you.

💬 Andrew Little: Mr Speaker.

Is the member calling?

💬 Andrew Little: Yes.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the honourable member Andrew Little. We were both stumbling for a minute.

I thought that in a moment of injustice I was going to be deprived of an opportunity to speak in the great House on the “great writ”! So I am very pleased to take this call on this very important piece of legislation, the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. As Mr Auchinvole has rightly said, habeas corpus goes to the heart of democracy and the sort of justice system that we celebrate and enjoy in this country. It has its origins as far back as 1215 in the Magna Carta, and the injunction there to prevent the arbitrary arrest and detention of peasants and the other citizenry by the monarch and the feudal lords. Of course, that is as much a risk today in some quarters as it was then, some might suspect.

It is so important to our system of justice—and I do not wish to be dramatic in saying this—which, frankly, is under threat today. It is not because of that member, nor, I might add, because of the Hon Chester Borrows, although I have some criticisms of his performance, but because we have in New Zealand today the worst Minister of Justice we have had in more than a generation—a Minister of Justice who is presiding over cuts, cutbacks, and deprivation of access to justice in a way that we have not seen in the history of this great country. We are seeing it not just in the Family Court and we are seeing it not just in the District Courts—and this is where Chester Borrows does know a thing or two, because he is busily closing them down, and he has only this week closed down the Upper Hutt District Court, and, of course, courts in his own region—but we are seeing it in cuts to the budget for the Crown Law Office and the Public Defenders Office and in a whole host of areas in legal aid. This is all adding up to a very serious erosion of principles of justice and, most important, access to justice.

Habeas corpus has at its heart the right of citizens not only to be deprived of arbitrary arrest and detention, but, if that happens or is alleged to have happened, to be brought before a court to have it tested, and this House should never lightly interfere with the High Court’s jurisdiction in this area. This bill creates some sensible reforms and some expeditious measures about habeas corpus, but let us not understate the value of it, and let us not forget that we have a justice system that, frankly, is under threat at the moment and upon which more work will be required. But we will support this bill.

The Green Party has supported the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill all the way through the House since the beginning, supported it through the Justice and Electoral Committee, and supported the amendments as reported back. It is—and we agree with Chris Auchinvole, Andrew Little, and others—a fundamentally important piece of legislation, if uncontroversial. It is a bill that addresses the central principles of Western democracy, and our constitutional system should not be taken lightly.

The only controversial point, it seems, through the passage of the bill—setting aside a touch of humour here and there, and some of it in Latin—is whether what should essentially be seen as part of the governmental legislative programme should find its way into the members’ ballot. We, for our part, query that, and intend to pursue it in other forum. But we are happy, none the less, to support the bill, and in the most constructive spirit possible commend Chris Auchinvole for his work on this.

I would like to endorse the comments of all the members in the House, and just simply record, as one of my colleagues told me today—in fact, Maryan Street; I shall name her—that habeas corpus means “you have the body”. I do appreciate that the member has brought the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill to the House.

It is a great pleasure to rise in support of this very good bill in the name of my colleague, Christopher Auchinvole. This Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill is one that I endorse. I commend it to the House with great enthusiasm.