Victims of Crime Reform Bill

I take a moment to speak to the Victims of Crime Reform Bill, noting, as we have done from the outset, that Labour will support this bill. I note that this bill makes important changes to the gradually evolving victims’ rights legislation that we have in this country, starting as it did in 1987 under the then Labour Government when it passed the first victims’ rights piece of legislation. It was reviewed in the early 2000s and changes were made then, and now we come to this piece of legislation.

I think it is quite clear that, around the world, the place and the role of victims in the administration of criminal justice have become greater and have become very important, particularly following conviction and leading up to sentencing. Although the theoretical role, if you like, of the victim was to hand over their place and their interests to the prosecutor, usually the Crown, in criminal matters, increasingly victims now want to have their voice directly heard in the court, and that is not a bad thing. We live in an age of accountability, whether it is organisational or whether it is personal, and in the criminal justice system that counts for a great deal. It counts for a great deal when victims can directly report to the court, and often to the perpetrator of the crime of which they are the victim, the impact of that crime on them for their family and often the wider community.

So this bill is important. It clarifies some of the rules, for example, around victim impact statements—how they are to be presented and what is to be included in them. It is interesting that in the new section 17AA under clause 11, which sets out how a victim impact statement is defined, subsection (2) states that information to be presented as part of a victim’s impact statement can “include any photographs, drawings, or other visual representations provided by the victim.” This is an interesting development. Certainly, up until now most victim impact statements have been written—either written directly by the victim who is making the statement or written on their behalf with the assistance of others.

Up until recently they were read on behalf of the victim, but more recently they have been read directly by the victim to the court.

There have been tensions about what should be included in a victim impact statement. The tension is usually between the judiciary on the one hand, which clearly has an interest in maintaining the decorum of the court, and the victim on the other, who is often profoundly affected by crimes perpetrated against them and want to be able to deliver a statement reflecting their feelings, emotions, and usually their grief in the most sheer and stark way. That tension has to be resolved, and I think that this bill goes some way to ensuring that the interests of the victim in being able to present their statement in a very clear way are preserved, but also that a judge can exercise some control to ensure that the order of the court is maintained. So all of that is good and we welcome that.

We should also reflect now on the pace at which victims’ rights are being developed in this country. Is it enough to simply make some gradual and incremental changes to this legislation and to these rights of victims that have been around for some time, or is it time to consider a more deep-seated approach—for example, a specific advocate for the victim? Is it perhaps time to consider a comprehensive or a coherent charter of rights for victims rather than appearing in this piece of legislation—in terms of their right to make a statement to the court—or in other legislation where their right is to have some assistance from the court or from Victim Support? Is it perhaps time to go beyond that and ensure that where those victims face costs associated with attending trials, as many victims do, particularly of serious crime—attending a hearing, or attending court, which may be for days, or in some cases for weeks at a time—it is automatically accepted that the costs that they face in doing so would be covered by the State to enable them as the victim to participate properly and fully in the criminal hearing.

For many victims it is attendance at the trial of an alleged offender, and, if they are then convicted, attendance at their sentencing, that helps to close that emotional loop or to bring some closure to them and their wider family. In particular, where the offence that they are a victim of involves a homicide or a very serious assault that has materially—and deleteriously changed the life of the family member on whose behalf they are there, and where they are a victim because of the loss of a functioning family member. Perhaps it is time for this House and for the Minister of Justice to consider the next step, which is a more comprehensive review—or at least a more comprehensive piece of legislation—covering the whole gambit of victims’ rights, and the means and processes by which victims can participate in the criminal justice process so far as it affects them.

So we do support the bill. It is an important addition to our victims’ rights matrix. It will address a question that has been longstanding for many victims and their advocates and, indeed, for the courts themselves—that is, to be very clear about the way that victim impact statements are to be dealt with, how information is to be disclosed to victims, and about the protection of victims’ contact details so that they cannot be further harassed or prevailed upon by perpetrators of crimes or those who would assist them or be their acolytes. It is welcome in that regard, but I simply conclude by re-emphasising the plea that I have made that perhaps now it is time to do something more comprehensive and to go further. But perhaps it is also time to bring together all that victims’ rights legislation that we have in other parts of legislation so that there is now a single place to go for victims and their advocates, for them to understand not only how the process works but what their rights are and, indeed, the obligations of the system to them. On that note, we welcome the bill and we will support it.

I rise to speak to the Victims of Crime Reform Bill as a new entrant to the Justice and Electoral Committee, having sat on that select committee only since September or so of last year. I have not had the privilege of hearing submissions on this bill, and here we are now with the bill in the Committee stage. So I have had to apply myself to it and find out exactly what it was about. I would like to take a moment, Mr Chair, with your indulgence, just to recap on that because this bill was introduced on 18 August 2011—18 August 2011. It went to the Justice and Electoral Committee and it was reported back in a not extensive time frame on 27 June 2012, taking into account, of course, that there was an election between those two dates. With that obvious disruption, the Justice and Electoral Committee seemed to have dispensed with this bill in very efficient order.

It has come back to the House on 8 April 2014. So I think members of the public could be forgiven for feeling somewhat confused, as I am, about whether or not this bill is of importance to the Government, because of that time frame. We are now looking at nearly 2 years since the report was presented to the House. Although I applaud transparency and I would encourage the Government to be transparent on all occasions, in this case I suspect that it is transparent to everybody that it has brought this piece of legislation back to the House only because we are now approaching the next election and because it would like to have this particular notch on its belt in respect of justice issues, law and order issues, which people will be paying special attention to during the election campaign.

So, having dispensed with that little bit of cynicism, and the fact that the Government has been and is, in fact, being transparent on this occasion, I would like to recap on what the bill is about. People may remember it best, I think, if I refer in passing to one of the most difficult trials, which received a great deal of media coverage—it was the trial of the killer of Sophie Elliott. In the course of that trial the defence of Clayton Weatherston relied on a character assassination of Sophie Elliott in a way that caused her family enormous distress, as victims of that crime. I cannot think of anything worse than to be a family member, particularly a parent, of a child who was murdered in such violent circumstances. Therefore, the rights of victims of crime came to the fore again in the public consciousness.

This was something that the Labour Government, as my colleague Andrew Little has just alluded to, did address. I want to draw attention to the Labour Party minority report in the select committee’s return report on this bill. The Labour Party minority view said that the New Zealand Parliament has dealt a number of times with the rights and interests of those who suffer as a result of criminal offending. The Victims of Offences Act 1987 and the Victims’ Rights Act of 2002 were Labour Government initiatives, and both adopted a broadly similar approach to this one: incremental changes. Again, I refer to the comments that Andrew Little made in respect of the fact that it may be time for more than incremental change. But I was mindful, when I was reading the bill and reading the select committee’s report on it, that there is a balance that needs to be—

I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to report progress. This debate is interrupted.

Progress reported.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.