Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. I want to make several points, and they’re actually about the bill, which will be a bit of a shock to anybody listening to this debate. This is a bill—thank you to Carl Bates—that we have before us to extend the age that people can serve on juries. I want to start with the value of juries themselves. This was raised by one of the ACT Party contributors here who talked about the value of the jury. I’ve been a lawyer most of my life, which meant that I couldn’t serve on a jury, and now I’m in this position, I probably can’t either. If we go to 72, maybe I’ve got a chance of serving on one. I’d be very, very keen to be part of a jury because I think they’re a really interesting institution.

I think it goes back to a time when I was part of a law-school class run by a guy called Bernard Brown, who was must have been one of the nicest professors that you could ever have. He was a legal historian. I remember him telling us about the early juries and how they came about. One of his favourite stories was to talk about how when you created penalties that were too severe, juries simply wouldn’t find the person guilty. There were a lot of penalties at that point that included tarring and feathering, and in fact, juries would not find their fellow citizens guilty of these crimes because tarring and feathering seemed too severe.

It was a really good lesson in staying in step with the norms and values of your society or never being very far apart. The jury told its own story about where it would settle in terms of justice. Some of us call that, I guess, common sense, but it’s a process whereby people sit and they listen and they actually adhere, as part of their civic duty, to a set of rules that are about impartiality, about listening, fairness, listening, justice, listening, listening, and listening. They don’t do it from a point of view of being on high, like a judge. They’re not separated. They are accepting that they do this in equality with the person who is being tried, but they also do it in equality with the person who is the victim, and I think that’s a really interesting part of the jury system.

Now, I actually don’t think that it’s something that is for every situation. I think there are a lot of situations which are very harrowing. They require an expertise that we need to draw upon, but I think it’s a really valuable part of our system.

I want to talk about something that is very connected with this bill and its ethos, which is about the value of our older people in our community, and this is a lesson I’ve really had to learn as my parents have aged. My dad, like Arena Williams’ father, and I think you’ve heard from her—by the way, Arena Williams’ father is someone you just need to meet. He’s absolutely amazing. He’s electric, he’s energetic, he’s intelligent, and he is assertive. He’s a lot of things that you’d want on a jury, and he’s in his 90s.

My dad is 94 this year, and he drives me nuts—he absolutely drives me nuts. He drives me nuts because he is absolutely—he has tenacity. He thinks he’s in middle age, and he has no idea that this is called old age. He will not accept that. He does not live in Selwyn Village, where I would really love him to live. My mother has dementia and it’s hard, and it would be better in some ways, from my point of view, that they lived in Selwyn Village down the road, which is an amazing rest home with bright, intelligent people. But he does live there, because he will not give up his independence, and I think about the way that he and my mother have taught me the value of respecting people’s autonomy and their intelligence as they get older.

When I was a lawyer, I had a case that I really remember. It was one of those things that just grated on me. It was a man who had been a CEO of a company, and he had got to 65 and somebody said, “Right, you’re out. You’re retiring because we’ve got a policy that says you’ve got to go.” I took the case because that was a breach of the law—you can’t discriminate on the basis of age. You used to be able to, so it was in his contract from years ago. There was a mediator involved in the situation. She said to him, “Haven’t you got better things to be doing with your time than working as the CEO of this company? Wouldn’t it be good to do some other things and take a step back?”, etc., and he said to her, “Lady, I can’t even deliver pamphlets. Nobody will employ me to deliver pamphlets.” That was the attitude of our society towards somebody with enormous experience and wisdom who wanted to work.

So we’ve come a long way, I hope, from that. It would have been maybe 15 years ago that I did that case. You know, I hope that the mediator doesn’t think the same thing that she did. I hope that most people don’t, but I do think we have suffered from an ageism that really is not appropriate and it probably never was appropriate. But I know how valuable work is, and this law, again, reflects that. Isn’t it strange that we did have a different rule for our judiciary? Isn’t it strange that we allowed some people to progress? I mean, let’s think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was a justice of the Supreme Court in America and how old was she? We have these beautiful people who are bright and stimulate us and bring with them the wisdom of having been every age, and we still have this prejudice that says that they cannot participate in the society and can’t contribute to something like a jury. So I think that it’s incredibly important that we challenge these real prejudices of the past.

Then, I want to spend the last part of my speech just actually talking about some of the people that I’ve met while I’ve been a member of Parliament—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): As it relates to this bill.

—as it relates to this bill—and the kinds of contributions that they would make to a jury. In this speech, I talked about how I had a group of people that I would love my father to join at Selwyn Village. The people that I have met at Selwyn Village are a community that is so thoughtful. I go along and I do these public meetings there where I meet with them and they ask me questions. I don’t think I get better questions asked of me in any context than I get in Selwyn Village. I get the best questions because people are focused and they’ve read well—

💬 Carl Bates: They’re engaged.

—and they are super-engaged, and they have thought deeply about things. I remember—and I think it was a point another speaker made about the pressures on people when they’ve got little kids. Actually, I think it was Cameron Luxton, again, talking about this. I remember that time in my life when I had little kids and there were catastrophes and there were crises, and I was trying to work. There were all sorts of things. I remember the gym instructor saying, “If you could just get here three times a week and focus on this.”, and I was thinking, “You’d be lucky. I don’t have that kind of time in my life.” But when you’re older, you get this privilege of, hopefully, a bit of time, and so this is a rich source of people for a jury.

We have people that I’ve met in that context in that village who would ace a jury. They’d be absolutely wonderful on it because they’d be thinking about the situation with all that rich experience, and coming to it with a proportionality. I think that this bill has got a really strong, firm affirmation of a group of people who often feel that they are not being valued and whom we should value, and so I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It really is a pleasure to rise as we are delving into the midst of the second reading of the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill, a member’s bill in the name of my good friend, as I mentioned in my first reading speech, Carl Bates, member of Parliament for Whanganui. I say “good friend” because he’s one of these people—like many of my colleagues in the class of 2023, as we say, and across the party that I’m very blessed to be part of—that are strong in their convictions but reasonable in their understanding and in the lengths they’d go to understand different sides of situations. I want to commend you, Carl, in that regard.

This bill is a very interesting one. It’s one of those bills—which often happens with members’ bills—where we realise it’s actually a very small change. I remember back to the member’s bill that I was very privileged to have pulled out of the ballot and that was passed unanimously in the House with respect to victims of crime. It’s a small change, but the ripple effect, I can confidently say, is quite colossal. When I think about this bill—and we’ve just heard from the speaker the honourable Helen White, who just sat down—we’re delving into the subject of our seniors and the value they add to different segments in our community. That’s something that, for me, resonates quite profoundly and quite deeply because, from a young age, I would watch my mother take extra care with our seniors and go that extra mile. It’s not because they’re not capable, but it’s because they’ve lived through this world, they’ve gone through different stages of our progress as a world, and they absolutely hold inherent mana in my opinion. That is why I really struggle when I hear people almost disregard the value—not all people but some people can—that our older, wiser, mature senior citizens can add to our society.

This bill, in the name of my friend Carl Bates, reinforces how valuable our seniors are and, actually, how much value they add when it comes to making decisions on the situations where people have transgressed the law. I reflected on how—as I was thinking about what I’d like to convey in my kōrero today—a lot of us at our ages—yes, I look 27, but I’m actually in my mid-40s. A lot of us, in our age, talk about how our parents have mellowed out—a lot of us; many of us. I, as a Lebanese wahine, talk about that with my cousins. My dad is so mellow these days—my dad was not mellow once upon a time—and in this mellowness, what I find is that when we give our seniors an opportunity to contribute effectively in the administration of the law—in a way, depending on how you philosophically look at it—via jury duty, they’ve had the wisdom of their years, the changes in the waves of them being mellow, not mellow, snapping, but in their mellowness, they never lose what’s important. That’s absolutely what I’ve seen with my parents, my beautiful parents, my aunties, and my uncles. That’s why I thank you, Carl Bates.

Other people might see this as a little change—“Oh, we don’t need to invest much time into a change like this.” No, we do. We need to invest time to reinforce how important it is to have the contribution of our older and wiser folk in the exercise of law. As we’ve mentioned, my colleagues across the House have said in no uncertain terms that the bill essentially makes two changes to the Juries Act 1981. If we’re going to put it into a nutshell, essentially the registrar’s discretion and duty to excuse someone from jury service on particular occasions—instead of it being automatic from the age of 65, we’re changing it to the age of 72.

I just think of my mother. My mother is 72.

💬 Suze Redmayne: Seventy-two is the new 50.

“Seventy-two is the new 50.”, my friend Suze Redmayne says. My mother is 72, and as I mentioned in my first reading speech, she says to me she’ll only retire when she dies. Once I was talking to her about a bill progressing in the House, and she said, “Well, why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” I said, “Mum, that’s actually what we’re doing. You’re so amazing.” She left school—well, she didn’t choose to, but circumstances meant that she left school—when she was 17. She would have loved to further her studies. Even without her studies—we talk about lived experience—the amount of knowledge and wisdom that my mother imparts to me and to many others. She loves jury duty. She tells me about the times that she sat on jury duty, and she’s a very wise, intelligent, and beautiful lady. Thank you, my friend Carl. Thank you. I do commend this bill to the House.

Before I end, with your indulgence, Mr Carl Bates, and with your indulgence, Madam Speaker, and the indulgence of the House today, there was a funeral in Auckland, a funeral of someone that’s only known to me minimally but is very important to my brother-in-law. I often talk about my Tongan, Kiwi, Aussie brother-in-law, Cyril Edwards. His paternal auntie passed away. The sadness is that she just turned 99 a few weeks ago. But Cyril and his siblings often talk about the wisdom of Auntie Janie. Her name is Janie, Seini Foliaki, and she was married to the late Leopino Foliaki. If you allow me, Madam Speaker, in terms of—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): As it relates to this bill.

Yes—in terms of the beauty of the wisdom of age and what she’s imparted. I’d just like to share my condolences, if you’d allow me, Madam Speaker, to the Foliaki family in what they’re going through today and recognising that it’s going to be put on the Hansard. Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you to the memory of Auntie Seini and the wisdom that she’s imparted. She showed everyone that, yep, you might be 99, but you still can add a lot of value to our communities.

Coming back to this bill—

💬 Cameron Brewer: Very nice.

Thank you. And thank you for your indulgence, Madam Speaker, and to my friend Carl Bates.

Coming back to this bill, as we said, it just increases that automatic age from 65 to 72. Some of the positives of this are that we know that it will help in making sure that we can have more people to contribute to jury duty so that we can get through our cases in a quicker and faster way as well, because we’d have that that extra seven years of people that fall into that pool for jury duty being able to contribute as well.

I really appreciate the fact that, Carl, when you gave your first reading speech and indeed throughout the conversations in the Justice Committee, you gave a lot of thought into why the age of 72. The member came to the conclusion that it was a balanced midpoint where judges retire at the age of 70 but can serve until the age of 75, and the Ombudsman’s retirement age, at this stage, is 72. That’s how my colleague Carl Bates came to that midpoint of 72. I’m excited about this going forward and what it means for the opportunities it continues to open for our senior citizens, who we admire so much and we thank so much. Again, Aunty Seini Foliaki, may your soul rest in peace. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As has been well canvassed in this House here this evening, Labour supports this bill. I’d like to take the opportunity to congratulate Carl Bates for seeing an issue and bringing it forward, a perfect example of what members’ day can do and bills that identify where there are issues and do something to fill them.

One of the things I would like to note is that many times you don’t really know until you get to that select committee process. As this is a second reading speech, I just wanted to comment that I have read through the submissions that were presented at select committee, and you can see from that that most of the select committee submissions did agree that there was an issue here, that the courts are being pressured at the moment, and that this would go some way to alleviate them.

I also noticed Age Concern New Zealand’s feedback. It does relate to what has been said here and what I have heard here this evening that the way that society sees ageing now has changed, in that we’ve moved to a positive approach to ageing that maybe a decade or more ago we didn’t see quite like we see now. It is important, as Age Concern New Zealand say in their submission, that this bill recognises and promotes that positive ageing and also promotes the value of older people in making decision making in such a way as being representative on the juries.

The other point that I thought was really interesting in that particular submission was that they said that this goes a long way to increasing the diversity. I think that is really important because 65 isn’t that old and doesn’t bring that level of diversity, if that’s the cut-off point. So I am really supportive of anything that will increase diversity and will increase the chance that the Ministry of Justice will be able to fill those juries a lot easier because there will be a lot less people who will be able to give those excuses over time.

So, as I’ve said, Labour supports this bill and we look forward to seeing its progression through the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m happy to be able to stand and contribute to the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill. As a fan of jury movies, it is a very interesting topic for me. My top three would be 12 Angry Men, Runaway Jury, and Juror #2. Each of the movies show how the stress and anxiety brought about by jury duty impacts on the jurors themselves. So it—

💬 Dan Bidois: 12 Angry Men—that’s another good one.

Absolutely.

💬 Carl Bates: And the TV series The Twelve.

Yes, and so there is much to be said about allowing jurors who are more senior in age to be able to contribute still. I must say that there are practical reasons to this change from age 65 to 72. The practical reasons include reducing the need for having to issue more summons, as people aged 65—who are, at this stage, still given jury summons—will ask for excusal at age 65. They have much more to give, and allowing the age to be increased to 72 will allow that. Also, as the member across has mentioned, allowing more people of age to perform in the jury duty gives diversity to the pool and increases the number that’s available for the pool. The ageing population of New Zealand also demands that. It’s a sign of the times. We’re also getting to live far longer and far older.

Also, I wanted to take this opportunity to mention that, as my colleague Suze Redmayne had mentioned earlier, actually, which was that the official thing is that 50 is the new 40, and so on—she referenced and so on and so on. I must say, especially to my younger colleagues, that everything feels the same after 40—it feels absolutely the same. Probably there would be some differences, like whiter hair and some other little bits and pieces, but it’s largely the same.

So there’s much to be said about being 65 and older. Taking it from my point of view and my own observations, there’s much more serenity and far less anxiety, and there’s much more calm, and far less rash judgment. These are really good qualities for a juror, and this—

💬 Suze Redmayne: Life experience.

Yes, life experience—it is.

💬 Tom Rutherford: Yeah, lived experience.

Lived experience—it is. As I’m sure my peers in this House and my more senior colleagues would agree, lived experience allows for a far greater and more balanced judgment of the facts of any case that may be before a juror. I think that it is an opportunity that should not be ignored, and a space of humanity that should be given the opportunity to carry on and contribute. For these very reasons, I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, it’s a pleasure to take a short call on the Juries (Age of Excusal) Amendment Bill, but can I just say I’m really hoping and very excited that tonight we finally get to the Life Jackets for Children and Young Persons Bill, Mr Brewer. That would be very exciting. We’ve been waiting for that for a while, so I’ll keep this call short in the interest of trying to get to your bill, good sir.

Labour supports this bill. As has been spoken about tonight, it’s a sensible bill that will make it more straightforward for older members of our society to participate in a jury. It’s no secret to New Zealanders that in my community of Nelson, we do have a higher proportion of older people, many of whom, upon their retirement, continue to contribute in a number of voluntary ways—volunteering for organisations, sitting on committees, and actually being able to undertake jury service is the type of contribution that I know a lot of older people in Nelson really appreciate being able to do.

Just to be really clear, the current law doesn’t preclude anyone over the age of 65 from participating in a jury already, but what it does do is it allows somebody over the age of 65 to be able to excuse themselves, whereas that age is now going to be lifted to the age of 72. So what this will mean is that there is a bigger pool of people who will be required to participate in a jury. That is a good thing, because we know that there’s a real pressure on our court system, and often part of that pressure is actually having the availability of jurors to sit on a jury.

I also just note that the Justice Committee did make a couple of small amendments to the bill with some savings provisions, particularly, to ensure that when the bill has its commencement and receives its Royal assent that it doesn’t become retroactive to people who have already been issued their first notice for being on a jury, their first summons, so that was a sensible position from the select committee.

I congratulate the member on getting the bill this far. Labour is very pleased to support it, and I’m really looking forward to Mr Brewer’s bill later. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Sorry, you weren’t on my list.

I know, sorry.

I’m just taking a call because I really did want to actually take a call on this bill, Madam Speaker. And it’s probably something you’re not going to need to worry about for a long, long time, about the age of excusal for juries.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Because I’m already 72, you mean?

Well, no, because you’re so young. You’ve got obviously decades ahead of yourself. But I just also wanted to—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): As it relates to this bill.

—as it relates to this bill, yes—say to Mr Bates, congratulations on progressing this bill to the second reading. I know it’s quite exciting having your bill drawn out of the tin and then taking it through the process. And again, like some of the other members who have spoken here tonight I was lucky enough to be on the Justice Committee as we—

💬 Dan Bidois: Hard-working!

—hard-working Justice Committee, you have no idea—took this bill through the process and, you know, again, it is actually really up for the member in charge of a member’s bill to actually do the hard work. The select committee is obviously there to examine the legislation, can take submissions, but you actually, as a member in charge of a member’s bill, actually have to do the hard work yourself—to talk to other political parties, talk to other members on the select committee, and try to reach some consensus.

Again, I think it’s just an art that we—or something we just need to remember, that just because your bill’s been drawn, it doesn’t actually mean the select committee’s going to do all the work, because it doesn’t have the same vested interest as the member in charge does. So I want to congratulate Mr Bates on actually shepherding this bill through and having those constructive conversations. And look, we did look at a lot of different issues. I know Mr Bates might have been slightly infuriated when I said, “Well, let’s just get rid of the age entirely. Like, I just don’t know why we have an age restriction at all.” But, you know, I am in ACT, and we’re a little bit into freedom and trying to remove regulations and rules.

But look, we worked through what would be appropriate. We looked at different compromises as a committee. We obviously took submissions—and again, we did actually have some submissions on this bill, not thousands, but we did have some submissions and some thoughtful reflection on what this would mean.

Again, I think the other thing, which other members have mentioned tonight, is I think it’s also an acknowledgement that older New Zealanders actually can contribute to our justice system and play a really important role. The wonderful thing about the age we live in—I’m very positive about where the world is going and the actual hope for future generations. I like to say to my friends, you know, I do have some friends and acquaintances who are around 50, but I like to remind them they’re only halfway there. The life expectancy for people will get longer and longer and they will need to continue to think about the ways that they can contribute to society. Obviously, jury duty is a very important way to contribute to our society.

Look, we’ve done some wonderful things in Government in trying to actually address court timeliness, but when jury trials are required, we actually need people to serve on those juries. Having a slightly larger pool of New Zealanders that can actually participate is super important.

I think the other thing I found really interesting was with the justice officials in the Justice Committee. They actually gave us a lot of information about the actual practicalities about how the balloting system works, how they actually get the pool of jurors, and, again, some of the changes they’re looking to make so that people aren’t inconvenienced by having to turn up and present themselves from jury duty and hang around and wait there. They’re actually looking at some more modern techniques which actually will support what Mr Bates has done here, in this bill.

So, you know, I think a lot of that was really informative to the committee as we worked through the issues, because changing the age is just one thing; we wanted to make sure it actually works for people, and the mechanics of it and how juries are selected. People are obviously picked at random, and then they’re rung up and said they have to—or sent a letter actually, I think—come in. But there are ways they can also call to see if they do need to show up. And yeah, it was just really interesting to understand that process, and also how they’re looking at modernising it, which again will go in parallel to this change that’s being made around the age of excusal.

I think it was a very constructive process. I think we’ve reached a really good compromise—or a consensus, actually, is the word I would use—

💬 Carl Bates: Unanimous.

Unanimous consensus as a committee around the age. And yeah, I just think it was a really great example of the member in charge diligently working away, making sure it was an issue where we actually could make a change—it wasn’t too big in scope—building a consensus, examining the issues. And we really did feel that we were able to return this bill to the House with our—obviously—comments. We only made one, I think, minor—a couple of minor amendments just to make sure that the transitional provisions, etc., and other Acts were covered off.

I really, yeah, want to commend the member and also all those others on the Justice Committee, people who made submissions. I will be commending this to the House on behalf of them. Thank you.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.