Borrows Chester: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBorrows Chester: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9710. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CHESTER BORROWS (Associate Minister of Justice): I moveThat the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill be now read a second time. In October 2011 Parliament passed the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and its 14 associated amendment Acts. Those Acts represented the biggest reform and modernisation of criminal justice procedure in nearly two generations. It forms a comprehensive package that will make the criminal justice system more transparent understandable and efficient. Although a small number of provisions came into effect in March 2012 the majority of the legislation will commence in July this year.Since enactment a number of technical deficiencies have been identified in the Criminal Procedure Act and associated legislation. This bill is an omnibus bill to rectify those technical issues identified during the implementation process. These amendments ensure that the legislative intent of certain provisions is made clear so that those provisions can be interpreted and applied consistent with the policy. The amendments ensure that operational efficiency in the courts is enhanced by clarity in the legislation and that the predicted benefits of reform are realised by full implementation. I would like to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its thorough consideration of the bill and the amendments it has recommended. The constructive engagement from all parties on the committee enabled the bill to be reported back to the House well ahead of its due date.I would like to focus on two issues raised by the New Zealand Law Society in its thoughtful and considered submission on the bill. The first issue relates to the provision of the bill that would have allowed for regulations to make consequential amendments to references to the word “crime”. The criminal procedure reforms abolish the summary and indictable offence distinction and repeal the definition of “crime” in the Crimes Act 1961. In some instances references to “crime” have already been replaced to make clear the scope and effect of the provision in question. As the Law Society noted that is necessary in some instances to make legislation intelligible.The relevant regulation-making power was proposed to enable any such references to “crime” that may inadvertently remain on the statute book to be tidied up. However the Law Society raised concerns about the potential for this power to be used to make substantive changes to the criminal law by extending too far the scope of existing criminal provisions and the committee has removed this particular regulation-making power from the bill. Although the committee doubted that the power would be used inappropriately it agreed with the Law Society that such amendments would be better made by primary legislation and this would allow parliamentary scrutiny on a case by case basis of any such amendment.The second issue relates to another regulation-making power and this one relates to the jurisdiction of community magistrates. As many members may know community magistrates are judicial officers who sit on a wide range of less serious criminal matters in several District Courts around the country. The bill clarifies and gives full effect to the intended policy that community magistrates may receive guilty pleas for those offences for which they may sentence offenders. It also amends the regulation-makingpower in the Act to clarify that community magistrates have jurisdiction to deal with all category 1 offences punishable by a fine of up to $40000 except those specified by regulations. Currently the Act requires all offences that community magistrates have jurisdiction over to be specified in regulations.The Law Society raised concerns that this change reversed a policy decision. Although the committee understood the concern it ultimately determined that the amendment provided the most efficient means of meeting the overall policy objective that community magistrates should have jurisdiction to act within the specified range unless there is a compelling reason that they should not do so for any particular offences. The committee also recommended that certain powers be included in the list of matters exercisable by the community magistrates. The Chief District Court Judge raised the issue with the Ministry of Justice.Due to a legislative oversight certain powers properly exercisable by community magistrates had not been included in the Summary Proceedings Act. This bill provided the opportunity to make the necessary amendments. These give community magistrates the power to order that a vehicle be confiscated and destroyed after a third illegal street racing offence and the power to issue a written caution to a person with an interest in a vehicle involved in a street racing offence. A number of Land Transport Act powers are also specified as being exercisable by community magistrates consistent with the Chief District Court Judge’s representations as to the need to update the legislation.These sensible amendments fall squarely within the scope of this bill and the overall objective of the criminal procedure reforms. As noted by Judge Doogue without these amendments the valuable resource provided by community magistrates would not fully be utilised. The amendments will help to free up District Court judges’ time and will reduce delay and unnecessary churn in the courts.The committee also recommended a number of other very sensible amendments to the bill consistent with the technical reforms in the bill to ensure its full implementation and effective operation. These are small amendments but collectively they ensure that the policies contained in the Criminal Procedure Act will be efficiently and coherently implemented as intended. I commend the bill to the House.