Tanczos Nandor: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill and say at the outset that yes we will be supporting this legislation because we think it is important. The international context in which we operate today means that international law needs strengthening in the face of recent atrocities. In the last couple of decades we have been witness to things that we thought we had seen the end of. We have seen acts of genocide in the former Yugoslavia Rwanda and other places. We have seen an illegal military occupation of Iraq by the United States of America. We have seen enormous international concern over the so-called rendering of suspects and the clear complicity in torture by the United States—and even involvement in torture in places like Abu Ghraib prison—and suspected torture in places like Guantánamo Bay. So it is timely that Parliament addresses a bill of this kind even if it is a fairly meek attempt to address what is a significant international problem. 
Essentially the bill ratifies the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2002. I have to agree with some of the comments made by Mr Mark. He mentioned a number of points one of which was the growing number of international treaties and agreements that we are signed up to without there being significant oversight by the Parliament. The Green Party along with some other parties has been consistent in looking at how we can get more parliamentary oversight of those international agreements. I am pleased to see this bill before the Parliament because it means that we do have a chance to discuss debate and address it in the select committee so it is useful in that sense. 
Mr Mark also raised concern about those members of the United Nations that will not sign up to the Optional Protocol and of course he is quite right because its provisions only apply to those countries that do sign up and implement the measures. The real concern is those countries that will not be signatories to the Optional Protocol. Mr Mark talked about a number of non-Western countries—non-democratic countries such as some states in Africa the Middle East and the like—but he also alluded to the very point that I will bring up. But it does not stop there. It also goes to the United States and the concern that when the world’s remaining superpower shows scant regard for human rights and international laws against the use of torture and shows a contempt for the international consensus against the use of torture we are in a pretty serious position. 
Clearly Mr Mark is also right about China. The Green Party has been consistent in condemning the Chinese Government both for its internal practices and for its behaviour in relation to places like Tibet and other nations that China considers part of Greater China. Those are issues that need to be talked about. 
The Optional Protocol establishes a subcommittee from the existing United Nations Committee Against Torture regularly to visit places where people are deprived of their liberty and to make recommendations to State parties concerning their protections. That is something we support. One of the issues is that the subcommittee makes its recommendations and observations confidentially to State parties. One has to wonder that although there is some value in that it perhaps holds those States to account to some degree it significantly weakens the hand of the subcommittee if those reports are to remain confidential. So we have concerns about that. But the general principle that the subcommittee be permitted to visit any place and have unrestricted access to persons deprived of their liberty and of information is important. 
To go back to the situation of the United States in Guantánamo Bay where there is enormous international concern about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay one of the significant issues is the lack of access. The international community has no way of really knowing what is going on there and there have been a number of rumours over the years. We have started to see people now being released—people who had the good fortune of being citizens of Britain and places like that. Some of those stories are coming out. But the issue of access to persons detained is enormously important and anything we can do to strengthen the international resolve to ensure that that ability is protected and strengthened is I think something that this Parliament should leap at the chance to do. So we support that. 
The other issue I was going to raise was around the National Preventive Mechanisms. Mr Mark was fairly scathing of some of those provisions because I think he viewed it as simply another committee or bureaucracy or something being set up and questioned whether it would have any value whatsoever. 
Ron Mark 
: In New Zealand. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: That is right but the point I would make is that there seems to me to be an obvious synergy here. Coming out of the concerns about what happened in Christchurch which the member alluded to—and he played a significant part in drawing public attention to the “goon squad” and some of those issues—we have seen a move by the Government to start to try to address the way the Department of Corrections and Government agencies respond to the complaints and to any evidence that comes to light around breach of rights suffered by people in prison. The new Corrections Act has gone some way to try to strengthen the complaints process that currently sits within the Department of Corrections. 
Members may be aware that last year during the passage of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act the Greens actually negotiated an agreement with the Government that by the end of this year we would see in place an independent prison inspectorate—an inspectorate that would operate outside the Department of Corrections—the role of which would be in terms of investigating complaints by prisoners and in being able to enter prison facilities inspect and talk to prisoners and actually do its own investigation. That is something that has been lacking in this country for a very long time. It is interesting that that legislation was actually about addressing or weakening one of the protections that did exist which was the ability of prisoners to take the Government to court over breaches of their rights. 
So I do not think that the protections Mr Mark said are in place are always entirely adequate. It was clear during the select committee process on that bill that one of the concerns in the public domain was the lack of perceived independence of the prison complaints system as it then existed. We heard submissions from Victim Support people who supported the idea of an independent prison inspectorate. If I remember correctly the Sensible Sentencing Trust also supported the idea as did the civil liberties organisations and people like Tony Ellis. They said that regardless of what people thought about the compensation that was being paid to prisoners they agreed that we needed to stop abuses in the prison system. It was pretty clear that the most obvious way to start to do that was to implement an independent prison inspectorate. That has now been agreed and that independent prison inspectorate is going to be in place. 
It seems to me that the obvious thing for the Minister to do is to designate the National Preventive Mechanism to be that body. I do not see that it necessitates the setting up of any new committee or new bureaucracy. It would simply be a synergy that the inspectorate when it is in place will simply be designated and I note that the Minister has a year to make that designation. 
Ron Mark 
: That would be sensible. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: Mr Mark says that that would be sensible but he seems to be cynical as to whether that would actually happen. I note that the Minister has a year and it would seem the obvious thing to do is to make that designation. But we are supporting the bill. We see the independent prison inspectorate as a crucial part of its implementation and I look forward to the discussion in the select committee.