Bridges Simon: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — Second Reading 
Bridges Simon: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21427] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 The Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill is an excellent bill that will produce an enduring framework for criminal procedure in this country for many years to come. As a former criminal lawyer who has done more jury trials than anyone else in this House I will make some comments that I hope will be helpful and of some deeper truths. 
I have thought a lot about the 3-year threshold for jury trials which is one of the two or three things that have caused some stir in the media. My view having thought about this is that the jury trial is not a fundamental human right but in fact we as New Zealanders do have a fundamental right to a fair trial and as in other countries a judge-alone trial can produce that. I certainly accept that jury trials have a deep history in this country that goes back to the United Kingdom. That history runs very deep so I accept there is an expectation that for serious criminal cases there will be a trial by one’s peers. 
The question then becomes where we should set the threshold. Borne out by the Justice and Electoral Committee my view is that that is somewhat arbitrary. I have put to the Bar to members of the legal profession the question of whether the threshold should be 6 months 7 months 8 months 2 years or 5 years—and in my view the answer came down to their gut feeling. Certainly I think most would agree today that 3 months is too low. Some—myself included—might say that 2 years is too low and 5 years is too high but it is an arbitrary matter. What I would I say though is that in matters of criminal justice we want to get beyond platitudes about saying what the threshold must be and get at the deeper truth about what it is all about. What we are really talking about when we talk about jury trials and the right to having one is the right to having a trial by one’s peers on the most serious of cases—not on the theft of a pencil sharpener as some would have us believe. 
I also think that the lack of a mature debate about other aspects of this bill has been somewhat disappointing such as the elements in dispute which other parties have talked about in this House. That has been caricatured as a debate about the right to silence but in fact the provision in the bill as modified by the select committee was to do with elements of the offence. There is no question about the need to give evidence at any stage in the proceeding yet the debate has been caricatured and reduced to a mantra by some in the Bar and by some in the Opposition. I hope that when we discuss these kinds of serious issues in the future we might be able to get beyond that to the deeper truths of what is at stake because criminal justice and procedure is not as some at the Bar might think a game with something to be gamed. It is actually a very serious matter whereby we seek truth and we seek justice. The procedures should be servant to getting to the truth and not just to something to be gamed. 
On the whole this is an exceptionally strong bill. I hope that when we discuss these things in the months and years to come we will be able to look past the mantras to the fundamental truths.