Tanczos Nandor: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Tanczos Nandor: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6459. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I speak on behalf of the Green Party on this bill. As the honourable Minister Rick Barker has said this is an omnibus bill so it contains a number of different measures and provisions some of which the Green Party supports and some of which we have concerns about. We do have a number of concerns about parts of this bill and I will go through those during my speech. As well I recognise that the bill contains a number of sensible and positive amendments to current procedure and I also intend to acknowledge those. 
The first thing I would like to address is the amendments to the Crimes Act. The bill amends that Act by allowing a bailiff to execute a warrant to collect any fine or other money that an offender has been ordered to pay if that fine has not been paid within the specified time. Currently those powers are exercised by a police constable. A bailiff will also have the power which also at present is available only to a police constable to make a report for the sentencing judge regarding the making of such an order as he or she thinks fit as to an offender’s financial means or to the fact that an offender cannot be found after a reasonable inquiry. 
The question that raises for the Green Party is what limitations there will be on those warrants to be executed by bailiffs. The concern we have is that a bailiff is I understand appointed by the court and is not subject either to the kinds of rigorous selection procedures or rigorous training that a police officer undergoes. We think there are real concerns about giving such a power into the hands of a bailiff. We are unclear at this stage as to whether that power to execute a warrant will allow a bailiff the power to detain or arrest people or whether it is simply to obtain information and collect unpaid fines. That is one of the issues that we believe needs to be clarified with some certainty before we would feel comfortable about supporting this bill. 
The second thing I would like to address is the amendments to the Customs and Excise Act. The bill provides for the New Zealand Customs Service to supply arrival and departure information to the Department for Courts to enable it to locate serious fines defaulters and to take fines enforcement procedures against those persons where a warrant to arrest them has been issued for non-payment of the whole or part of their fines and the warrant has not been withdrawn or executed. When we talk about serious default that is defined as a person owing $1000 or more in fines or any other amount that may be decided by Order in Council—so we can say $1000 at this stage but that could be varied very easily by an Order in Council. 
The explanatory note of the bill refers to the enforcement of fines at airports and it puts forward a number of different procedures that may happen. They include information-matching on some or all fines defaulters against international travellers; information-matching plus advice to defaulters who are identified that they must pay their fines information-matching plus the interception and arrest of some or all fines defaulters at airports and general publicity. United Future referred to the different kinds of procedures that may apply at airports and we understand that they may be in the form of a silent warning—the tagging of a person and that person being contacted when he or she returns to the country—or that defaulters could be intercepted at the airport and not allowed to leave the country. United Future was concerned that there should not be too much disruption at the airport. The Green Party’s concern is that those procedures are not specified anywhere in the legislation as far as we can tell. They are simply an idea that is floating around and we would like to see more statutory clarity around the issue of how those people are to be dealt with at the airport. 
The amendments to the District Courts Act provide that a registrar has independent powers to issue a warrant for the arrest of a debtor. Currently the legislation states that that can be done if debtors cannot be brought before a judge. This provision allows a registrar simply to issue that warrant. I am not clear what the reasons are for that change and I think the select committee needs to look at that as well. There are amendments to the Immigration Act to allow the Department of Labour to supply immigration information to the department for the purposes of enabling any person who is in serious default in the payment of any fine to be located and for appropriate fines enforcement action to be taken. There are amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Amendment Act 1978 around the enforcement of fines imposed by the High Court on an offender on conviction on indictment for a drug-dealing offence. 
The amendments to the Privacy Act are another area that concerns the Greens. The bill amends that Act to allow adverse information against an individual on the basis of a result produced under an authorised information-matching programme to be acted upon by any sworn member of the police or by any bailiff. Those officers are able to immediately execute a warrant to arrest an individual for the non-payment of the whole or any part of a fine. I think any amendments to the Privacy Act should give us a bit of a warning light and there are huge privacy implications all through this omnibus bill. 
I understand that the Privacy Commissioner has not issued a report on this bill at this stage although the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has been working with the officials on the development of the bill. I understand that the commissioner will appear before the select committee to discuss matters that concern the office. The Green Party thinks that a more comprehensive opinion from the Privacy Commissioner is required before we would feel comfortable about supporting this bill. 
There are amendments to the Sentencing Act with regard to the payment of reparation simply stating that where reparation to multiple people is required it is on a first-in-time basis rather than on a pro rata basis. That simply means that if a person owes reparation to a number of people the one with regard to whom the first reparation order was made should be paid first. That is a sensible amendment and we support it. 
There are amendments to the Tax Administration Act to clarify the information that the Inland Revenue Department must make available to the courts in respect of fines defaulters. 
The last thing I would like to touch on is the amendments to the Summary Proceedings Act. There are extensive amendments in that Act in relation to infringement notices including things like allowing for separate reminder forms to be prescribed for different infringement notices. That makes sense; it makes things more flexible. There are also amendments to the procedural consequences of the serving of a reminder notice and so forth. 
That really brings up an issue with regard to infringement notices that I would like to briefly discuss in the last couple of minutes I have available to me. There is a huge injustice going on in our country where people who have been issued with an infringement notice are told that if they do not pay the matter will go before a court and they may then be subject to court costs in addition. That is fine. Currently the practice is that when the matter goes before a court the person is not informed that his or her case is before a court and people do not have the ability or the right to appear in court to defend themselves on that issue. It is a fundamental principle of natural justice that people should be able to appear in court in their own defence. For people to be taken to court without even being informed when or where their case is appearing is absolutely wrong. It is a total injustice. People are then being informed that their cases have been to court and that they have to pay the additional court costs without having had the opportunity to defend their cases. If people are found guilty and there are additional costs then that is fine but I say people have the right to defend themselves in court. 
I very strongly encourage the select committee to look at this bill and at the opportunity it provides to address that injustice. While we are looking at procedures to enforce the payment of fines we also need to make sure that those procedures conform to the basic principles of natural justice.