Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill

I rise and take a call on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. The previous speaker, Mr David Clendon, talked about a smooth and effective system, and that is exactly what this bill is actually intending to do. The bill makes minor technical amendments—11 in particular—so that the legislative intent is clarified, the operational efficiency is enhanced, and the predicted benefits are realised. That is exactly what we are doing, and I agree with Mr Clendon in that regard.

I want to briefly touch on two submissions—in fact, there were only two submissions—on this bill. One was from the Law Society and one was from Dr Don Mathias. Clearly, their submissions were in support, and generally there were a number of just minor changes that people wanted to make, but in particular there was general support for this bill because of what it is intending to do. The proposals build on the changes already under way to improve the criminal justice system, including removing oral deposition hearings, legal aid reforms, victims of crimes initiatives, and the roll-out of audio-visual links between courts and prisons.

I also just want to comment on a couple of things that will be achieved, including the changes made in the Supplementary Order Paper. The reforms contained in this bill have the potential to free up 10,000 court sitting hours each year by delivering benefits that include 31,200 fewer court events, 300 to 500 fewer jury trials, and 6 to 9-week reductions in the average time to complete a jury trial. This is a good bill. We think it has got great support right across the House. I commend this bill to the House.

New Zealand First supports the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. I would like to begin by congratulating the Associate Minister of Justice, Chester Borrows, on a good piece of legislation. I would like to congratulate the Justice and Electoral Committee on its work, which it carried out in a constructive and non-political way. I would particularly like to congratulate the Law Society and thank it for the quality of its contribution. It is fair to say that this piece of legislation would not be what it is without its input.

The nature of the amendments this bill makes to various Acts is largely technical, as others have said, arising from the passing of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. Although technical only in nature, they are still important and necessary amendments to keep the criminal law and procedure up to date. Failure to do so, of course, may result in some very unfortunate results.

The amendments fall into four categories. The first is a number of cross-referencing and other minor technical fixes, which form the bulk of the bill and are pretty straightforward in nature, requiring no debate here. Secondly, there are amendments to ensure that the procedures and processes under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 can be fully implemented to operate as intended, and these are also straightforward.

The most important amendments are those with references to crime, in several statutes, due to the repeal of the definition of “crime” in the Crimes Act 1961. An example of those is clause 4, which amends section 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, and concerns interpretation. The amendment adds a definition of “imprisonable offence”, and clause 32 amends section 11 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which concerns the theft of controlled drugs. The amendments replace “crime” with “offence”.

Clause 34 amends section 28 of the Summary Offences Act 1981, which concerns being found in a public place preparing to commit a crime. The amendments replace “crime” with “imprisonable offence”. Those are some examples of many amendments of that kind—simple in nature but very necessary and very important. So those are all measures that we can all easily support. They are good housekeeping amendments. Definitions in criminal legislation are, of course, of very high importance.

Another amendment gives community magistrates jurisdiction to receive guilty pleas for certain category 2 offences, being offences in respect of which community magistrates have sentencing jurisdiction. The opportunity is also taken to clarify with greater specificity other aspects of community magistrates’ jurisdiction. These also are sensible and necessary amendments, which will improve aspects of criminal procedure.

The Justice and Electoral Committee—mainly as a result of the input of the Law Society—recommended the deletion of clause 15(3)(h) of the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill as introduced, which contained a “Henry VIII” clause under which there would have been a regulatory power for the Minister of Justice to change the definition of “crime”, effectively amending legislation. Indeed, Henry VIII would have been proud of such a power, and, no doubt, would have used it to the hilt. New Zealand First supports, of course, the deletion of this clause, which was unnecessary and improper.

The bill makes many such sensible amendments, all of which are really just good housekeeping. New Zealand First will therefore vote for the bill, which, as I have already noted, is largely technical in nature. It makes some simple and technical changes in relation to the good operation of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011.

I rise to take a very short call in support of the second reading of the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. This bill is another step in our commitment to a more effective and efficient justice system. It has been described several times as “minor and technical”. I would have to say, as a previous lawyer, that when those words are used, it actually leads to more scrutiny and invites more attention, rather than less. Having said that, it is somewhat minor and technical, but it is important.

The most debated provision was in relation to the “Henry VIII” regulation-making clause. The Law Society made a very compelling argument. My colleague the Hon Lianne Dalziel has in her earlier speech well traversed the ramifications of “Henry VIII” clauses. I do not need to add any more to the debate than that. I merely say this is a good bill. It should be passed. I am pleased that it has got bipartisan, apolitical support across the House, and I support the bill.

It was interesting—just to pick up on a comment made by the last speaker, the Hon Kate Wilkinson—to hear about the Government welcoming bipartisan support. I think it is good when the House can come together and overwhelmingly support a piece of legislation that people acknowledge will improve the functioning of the justice system. Indeed, the Law Society in its submissions on this bill, the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill, made the point that in regard to criminal legislation, you should try to take the politicising of it out and actually work to have a coherent policy that will serve the interests of New Zealanders, of victims, and of all of those who appear in the court system.

I would hope that the Hon Kate Wilkinson and the National caucus as a whole actually take those principles and apply them more generally to the legislation in the House. Last night we spent hours debating legislation—when no member of the National Government got to their feet to debate it—that was rammed through under urgency. No attempt was made to build consensus. There was an absolute politicisation of the process. And then the Government wondered why it got powerful Government security legislation rammed through the House with the barest of margins—the barest of margins.

So I say to Kate Wilkinson: take the principles that you have just stated now and apply them to what you are generally doing across the House, and then you would get better legislation. You would have proper process and you would have good legislation. What the National Government showed last night was that it was not interested in process and was not interested in good legislation. It was not interested in protecting human rights against the most intrusive powers that the State can operate. Contrast that with this legislation. Suddenly peace and harmony, Chester Borrows, have broken out across the House. There is good reason for that. I agree with what Chester Borrows said in the House last night. These are the most important changes to the criminal procedure legislation in 50 years—in a couple of generations.

We need to look at the process to understand why this legislation will be good. It began under Labour, actually, in 2007. The way we went about this—and I was Minister of Justice just prior to that—was that we got the Ministry of Justice to do the work together with the Law Commission. They spent thousands of hours in working out how we could get fundamental reform to deal with some of the issues that confronted the justice system. So the process was not rushed, it was not rammed through, and it was not designed to be a distraction from the embarrassment of the Government in another area, like the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill was last night. It was proper process. The homework was done and the groundwork was laid.

Then we got the legislation. The primary legislation for this bill was 526 pages long. It was an enormous piece of legislation, and what it tried to do was address some of the critical issues that were facing the procedures in the criminal justice system. There were excessive costs and there were excessive time delays. You had a legislation process, or a framework, that was outdated, and you had excessive complexity involved in it. In fact, the Law Commission described the court system as an impenetrable maze for lawyers. Lawyers might like that because it creates work for them, but, actually, when they think of the public interest, they do not like that. You have got to think about serving society, about serving victims, and about protecting the interests of defendants in the right way. We were getting huge delays in the court system, and justice delayed is justice denied. We have heard that many times over, and it is absolutely correct.

So the legislation that came in aimed basically at addressing these critical problems: excessive costs, excessive delay, excessive complexity, and an outdated legislative framework. There was cross-party support for that broad reform, but then the Government decided it wanted to put in a number of more contentious things. That included lifting the threshold for jury trials so you would not be eligible for a jury trial unless your maximum jail sentence was in excess of 3 years. It required the defence to identify and disclose issues under dispute before trial, and that clearly would have worked against the interests of the defendant and would have been unfair. There was the allowance of courts to actually try a defendant in the defendant’s absence. That was an absolute turn-round on fundamental rights in the justice system that go back hundreds of years. There was the attempt to load compliance costs on to those involved in the process, and there was the attempt to remove the right to silence.

I want to give credit to a past National Minister of Justice, Simon Power. Actually, even though he put this in the original criminal procedures legislation, when the submissions were heard before the select committee, when the evidence was given, and when Labour, the Greens, and other parties highlighted the inadequacies of this, he listened and made changes—he listened and he made changes. There was proper process. The select committee worked. That is what democracy was about. That is why last night in this House we fought tooth and nail against the abridging of that process and the truncating of the opportunities for people to make submissions.

If you want to get legislation right, this legislation demonstrates absolutely clearly the importance of the select committee process. And we have just heard National members on this technical piece of legislation to bring the criminal procedures legislation into effect saying how important those submissions were. Today they say how important it is for the public to be able to make submissions. Last night they voted in the House to abridge the right of New Zealanders to have their voices heard on perhaps the most intrusive powers a Government has ever given itself to interfere in the privacy of individuals and to direct companies. I say those are double standards. We cannot say: “This legislation is good. Isn’t it great? We’ve got consensus, good process, good outcome.” and then do the opposite.

When is this slow-to-learn Government ever going to pick up the message that if you want legislation that serves New Zealand properly, then you do the proper process? You consult before you bring in contentious legislation. You try to embrace the Opposition and say that this is what you are trying to do. Before you tell telecommunications companies what to do in every aspect of their jobs, talk to them first—talk to them first. We saw in the corrections amendment legislation, which some of my colleagues from the opposite side of the House were on the committee for, that the Government in that case did not talk to the telecommunications companies first. It got it absolutely wrong. It had to do a total U-turn. But did it learn that lesson? No, it did not learn that lesson.

The appalling thing about today is that this bill before us today highlights every rort, every inadequacy, every breach of process, every attempt to truncate the ability of New Zealanders to have their voice heard and people to be properly consulted that occurred last night. When is this National Government going to learn? When are those backbenchers, with their heads down now, actually going to stop being lobby-fodder and challenge in their caucus the ridiculous decisions being made by their Ministers, including the Prime Minister? People elected the Government members to the House to actually have their voice heard, not to stand up on highly contentious legislation, mumble some inane comment, and sit down. That is not the job of the Government backbenchers, and well you should hang your heads in shame at the behaviour of the National Party caucus and its acolytes last night in the House.

This piece of legislation is actually a good piece of legislation. It supports a piece of legislation that had bipartisan support, that went through proper process, and we are celebrating that now. So, for heaven’s sake, if this is good and this was good process and this worked in the interests of New Zealanders, apply those same principles across everything that the Government is trying to do, including some of the obnoxious pieces of legislation that were compelled through the House last night by the narrowest of majorities. All that means is that, actually, we will be back in 18 months under a new Government to repeal that legislation. This legislation today is an example of how you should have done it, and that is why Labour is supporting it.

I am pleased to speak to the second reading of the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. As has been noted, this bill is largely technical and contains non-controversial amendments to ensure that the intent of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 is clear and can be applied as it was intended.

This bill has the support of the House. It is a good bill, with very sensible amendments. It is another step in National’s commitment to make the justice system more responsive. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

This will be a split call. Kris Faafoi, 5 minutes.

Before I hand out a few brickbats, let me hand out a few bouquets: first of all, to the Justice and Electoral Committee; to Scott Simpson, who is the chair; to Jackie Blue; to my colleagues Andrew Little and the Hon Lianne Dalziel; and to those who submitted to the Justice and Electoral Committee on this bill, the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill.

As Phil Goff said, we have got a bill in front of us at the moment at the second reading that has been amended. It is a good bill and it is a perfect example of how the process works when good legislation goes through this House. It has cross-party support, as the Hon Kate Wilkinson said. There has been a lot of consultation with Opposition parties to make sure that this very important piece of legislation will go through the House and have the wide support of this Parliament, because it is a very, very important piece of legislation in terms of our criminal procedures. We can contrast that, as the Hon Phil Goff said, with the pieces of legislation that we had before this around the Government Communications Security Bureau and the interception of telecommunications, where the process has been an absolute farce and an absolute shambles.

Those two pieces of legislation are very important in terms of oversight of our intelligence committees. You really do have to look at the way that the Government has put this piece of legislation through—in what I think was a very good manner, and we have got a very good piece of legislation before us—and what happened before this piece of legislation in terms of those two bills, the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill and the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill.

We have also got the situation where last night we were debating the truncation of the select committee consideration of one of those pieces of legislation; again, taking away the ability for the scrutiny that is absolutely needed when we are talking about the surveillance of New Zealanders’ telecommunications. Again, this is in complete contrast to the process in the select committee with this bill, the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill.

I understand there were only two submitters to this bill, the major one being the New Zealand Law Society. You have to contrast the ability of people who are aware of the situation in this criminal procedures legislation with the Law Society coming in and making a fulsome submission to the select committee. That select committee went away and listened to that submission, and made the appropriate changes in the appropriate length of time.

But in the previous legislation that I was talking about here, we have a truncated select committee period for a piece of legislation that goes to the heart of democracy and also the oversight of our security intelligence agencies. As the Hon Phil Goff has said, you can hardly make sense of the contrast between the process with the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill and with the legislation that this Government put through this House yesterday, in terms of the changes that it is making to our intelligence agencies.

As has been said before, this is a bill that makes technical amendments to, I think it is, the Criminal Procedure Act, which was put through this House in 2011. It has come out of work that was started by the Labour Government in 2007. I do want to just reiterate the words that the Hon Kate Wilkinson said—that although they may be technical amendments, they are very important amendments that make sure that the Criminal Procedure Act actually works for those people who are going through the court system, because there are some serious issues around delays in our court system, the increasing costs of getting justice in our court system, and also the complexity of the court system for those who are going through it, and that is for victims as well as defendants.

It is absolutely, fundamentally correct that we should put through this legislation to ensure that the quality of justice that those victims and those defendants are getting in our justice system is as good as it can be. As I did say, there was one major submission to the select committee, by the New Zealand Law Society, and that was basically around some concerns around the “Henry VIII” clause, which has been well traversed, around the definition of crime and the ability to change the definition of crime by regulation.

I just wanted to congratulate the Justice and Electoral Committee on taking that on board and making sure that that part of this bill was removed, because, as I say, this is a case where a select committee has listened and has acted, and the process was good. But I reiterate that in other bills that are before this House on this day of urgency, that has not been the case.

I am happy to take a call in the second reading debate on the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. As has been mentioned by everyone before, this bill is housekeeping, and it is good housekeeping, and that is an important thing. It is an indication for us—and I think this has been said before—that we can talk about housekeeping as if it is a very simple thing that is not very important, but, actually, if we do not do the housekeeping properly, terrible things can happen. That is why it has been good to see this bill go through this process—some potentially awful consequences have been avoided.

We have had the submission, the one substantive submission, from the Law Society, which has enabled us to avoid the Government being able to define crime through regulation. I am sure all New Zealanders will be very thankful for that in the future. I wish all bills in this House had the same scrutiny, and, when things appear very simple or very urgent or very important to this Government, I hope it will remember that this bill, which looked so simple, so technical, and was just a piece of housekeeping, actually held within it a small clause that could have had terrible consequences.

Without that proper scrutiny, this bill would have just passed and we would have had those terrible consequences in place. So I am very pleased to be able to commend this bill to the House, with the good housekeeping having being done. Thank you.

It is a great pleasure to rise to take a very short call to add my support for this bill, the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill, at its second reading. The problem with the current criminal procedures over the past 20 years could possibly be summarised as being that we have had excessive delay, complexity, an outdated legislative framework, and excessive costs. A lot of members have traversed these matters over the time of the debate of this bill. National believes—and many other members have actually mentioned this—that justice delayed is indeed justice denied. This bill will ensure that timely justice is delivered for victims, witnesses, defendants, and the community. That can only be good.

The system is clogged and needs to be fixed. These amendments will reduce delay in the District Courts and free up judge time. We expect shorter trials, fewer adjournments, and less delay overall. As someone who has actually been a victim, who had to turn up to court to face the offenders in a court trial, and who knows the frustrations and the stress that happen every time a court case has been delayed, I am very pleased that this is actually happening, because it can only reduce the stress for the victims. I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendments to Criminal Procedure Act 2011