Dean Jacqui: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1129. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):National does not support this bill. The member Dr Kennedy Graham has given a pretty full account of his rationale for promoting the bill. The information I was given was that the member had intended to withdraw the bill when it was at the Law and Order Committee so why he has chosen to continue with it I do not know. But as the member was talking it occurred to me that the recusal provisions actually prove the point that the current provisions are working.If we go back to I think around 2004—I am not quite sure of the time but it was around that time—there was a Court of Appeal case from which Justice Bill Wilson failed to recuse himself. It was Saxmere Company Ltd and others v Wool Board Disestablishment Company Ltd as some members will remember. It was found that Justice Wilson had a business relationship with one of the counsel and should have recused himself because he clearly had a conflict of interest but he did not recuse himself. So in terms of the law—and the member probably thinks I am agreeing with him—it was determined by the justice that yes in fact he should have recused himself. He then went on to resign his position and I think the accountability is there in the existing legislation. So maybe the issue here is not so much around having a register of pecuniary interests but around the provisions that deal with recusal and whether or not they are effective and I would contend that they are.So I will just move on to the Law Commission report of 2011 where the Law Commission released an issues paper that indeed examined the potential for having a register of pecuniary interests for judges. That report set out the current law as it relates to New Zealand England and Wales and it described the key features of financial registers in the United States of America India and South Africa. The Law Commission determined and recommended in its report that a register of judges’ pecuniary interests not be established in New Zealand and the member did not address that point in his speech. But we do have a Committee stage to come so I would expect and hope that the sponsoring member would address the recommendation of the Law Commission that a register of judges’ pecuniary interests not be established in New Zealand. I mean the member may care to disagree with the Law Commission over this point but I think the House would be interested to hear the reasons why.There are also concerns—I absolutely understand those concerns—that a public register of assets and of financial information could and I would say “would” compromise judges’ privacy and in some cases their safety and would expose them to pressures that they otherwise do not face. When I think of a District Court judge who does a circuit around provincial New Zealand they are in small towns. With regard to the nature of small towns let us talk about Whanganui for example. The District Court judge comes and does a circuit and appears in the town and sits in the court weekly fortnightly or however often the round is. The same defendants tend to come up against the District Court time after time after time. They are known to that judge. They develop a history. They are known clearly to the local police. So it is a pretty small environment and it is a pretty small pond.Imagine that some character gets his hands on the register of pecuniary interests of the District Court judge who is doing the circuit and reads that the District Court judge has a residence here has a residence here has a residence here holds a mortgage with some bank and other items. As members of Parliament we are very familiar with those but that information in the hands of an offender who is clearly holding a grudge against a judge has the potential to place that judge under some unwelcome pressure. I am not talking about an offender in the dock being less than respectful—there are remedies for that—but I do worry and I genuinely worry because judges tend to be quite isolated folk anyway due to the very nature of their job. I would not like to think that they were needlessly being placed under threat by some members of society who did not bear them the best of good wishes.It is believed that the current ethical codes and the common law around recusal are satisfactory in New Zealand. Our codes and our law are substantially the same as Australia England Wales and Canada. So New Zealand is far from being an outlier as the member sponsoring the bill would have us believe; that is not true. It is believed that we are very much in line with some pretty solid practices.I want to talk about the separation of the judiciary from Government. It was an issue that came very much to our attention at the Law and Order Committee in the previous Parliament when we were considering the Bail Amendment Bill. That was a bill affecting families of members of the public who had had an experience with the judiciary. It was around the circumstances of bail being granted to offenders who then went on to offend grievously in some cases against young people family members etc. Those family members who were badly badly hurt and grieving and will be for the rest of their lives were turning around looking for someone to blame. Of course they were. The decision maker in that instance—that is the person who was to grant bail—was the judge. Those families often laid blame for the decision to grant bail—and I am keeping within scope of this present bill I hope—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well I hope you are going to get back there soon.JACQUI DEAN: I am. I surely am.Jacinda Ardern: He’s very strict this Assistant Speaker.JACQUI DEAN: No it is good. That member was not on the select committee at the time and perhaps if she had been she might have been as affected by the circumstances as we were. The point—Ian McKelvie: Faafoi was though.JACQUI DEAN: Yes Kris Faafoi was. So I am rather hoping that he will pick up the theme. The point I am making is that there needs to be a separation of the judiciary so that they can make some sound decisions. That is the point—that we need our judiciary to remain absolutely separate so that judges make the best decisions they can.Just turning to the select committee process there were a number of submissions on this bill very few of whom supported the bill itself for the reasons that I have canvassed in this speech. So although I am sure this is a bill that is absolutely well meaning I do not think it achieves the purpose that it was intended to achieve because there are other provisions that provide protection for the public against the perception of bias in judges. I also think we need to protect judges because they need to be free as I was alluding to in our discussion on the Bail Amendment Bill to make good independent determinations. Clearly those determinations are not going to be popular but it is not a game about being popular. Thank you.