Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of this bill. I congratulate the Minister of Justice for bringing it to the House and just want to stop and notice that New Zealand is a nation who's proud of our history of upholding the rule of law and the right to fair trial and that we are one of the few nations actually in the world who has also adopted and applies the right to appeal as one of our fundamental rights recognised in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act under fair process rights and access to justice rights. The right to appeal is fundamentally important because as anyone who's worked in the criminal justice system knows there are so many factors that can go to the entry of a wrongful conviction and the repercussions are so serious for those who are wrongfully convicted especially of serious crimes. This bill proposes to establish an independent body to review criminal convictions and sentences and decide whether to refer them to an appeal court. The reason that's something to be celebrated is—and I know this from the ground—that the sector has been calling for this for years and years. I had the privilege of being elected on to the executive committee of the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association for four years and that body which is made up of prosecutors defence lawyers and judges has found for years that we needed something more because our court system was increasingly falling short to deliver justice to everybody. In part that's because the courts are overworked and in part that was because of the legal aid cuts and the restructure introduced by the National Government that the New Zealand Court of Appeal found to be unlawful. Those members continued to apply this unlawful legal aid system under their watch and now they stand up and say that perhaps we could reform it to make sure that miscarriages of justice don't happen. Well the sector knows that it was they who ruined the legal aid system and now it is falling short. Appeals are complex matters. A miscarriage of justice isn't just that one jury could have could have found the person guilty or not guilty and another could have decided differently. It's not just that the facts could have gone either way. It's that something went so wrong either in the application of the law during a trial or in that there was no evidence at all to support one of the elements of the crime charged. So it needs senior lawyers and it needs resource. Somebody has to go through the entire trial transcripts. They have to look at all the decisions of trial judges and make sure that they were all right and that we as a system and a society are not falling short. So this commission puts together a bunch of experts and they in fact take pressure off the courts. We make sure that everybody whether they're on legal aid or they have access to money has the same access to the expertise that will tell them if a miscarriage of justice has happened in their case. That takes pressure off the courts it takes pressure off the legal aid system and it equalises appellants. It takes pressure off victims and I think there's a misunderstanding on that side of the House. Victims are not involved in this process nor are the courts. This is an expert body that's going to look at and analyse whether or not something went wrong so that a court then has to look at it. It will actually cut out superfluous appeals because we know people are sometimes litigious and so sometimes appeals are brought without real great cause. So it will cut down on those things. Those of us in the Criminal Bar Association who did endlessly call for some intervention there knew that the courts weren't well-equipped to deal with all of the appeals because they were underfunded and because we didn't have enough judges. We don't have enough legal aid lawyers that are at the level that they can take on these cases especially with the cost-cutting in the unlawful legal aid policy that was adopted by the National Government. I do actually want to stop and acknowledge past presidents and the present president of the Criminal Bar Association—Noel Sainsbury and our past president Tony Bouchier who fought with our committee against those legal aid cuts. I want to acknowledge the Court of Appeal for saying that they were unlawful and that is what's brought us to this place now. It's brought us to a place where this Government on this side of the House is fighting for justice and is willing to invest in it. We're taking pressure off the courts we're taking pressure off the legal aid system and we're making sure that everybody whether they have money or not has an equal access to their fundamental right of appeal. We know that we don't want to be a society where people are wrongfully imprisoned or convicted or sentenced to unduly lengthy sentences without the right to raise legal issues or factual mischaracterisations that have led to wrongful conviction. We know that in a democratic society those rights exist and they are funded by the Government and not defunded to the point that the courts have to intervene and call Government policy unlawful. One of the things that I do also want to celebrate which comes under the mandate of the commission is that they will be able to initiate their own inquiries and issue reports on patterns that they see that are causing miscarriages of justice. So whether that's patterns in practice by the courts whether that's misapplication of the law that's happening repeatedly we'll be able to find that out because there will be a consistent body of experts sitting and looking at appeals as they decide whether or not they should go forward. We'll have this wealth of information to draw upon. I was quite surprised I must say that a member on the opposite side—a lawyer—would actually say that the Government should instead rely on podcasts and popular culture to notice patterns in miscarriages of justice because you know of course it's only sensational cases we need to worry about right? No—miscarriages of justice do happen in cases that the public may not need to hear about on podcasts. We still need to know that our justice system is working well and that there are not consistent errors being made that are leading to miscarriages of justice. So that is exciting. Another change that's come through is the inclusion of the recommendation from the committee that there be a tikanga Māori specialisation on the commission. We know that that's important because our system of justice does disproportionately target Māori and we know that we need to do something at every level in this Government and we're committed to doing that. Whether that's in terms of preventing crime whether it's in terms of police biases or whether it's in terms of the way that the law and the courts are applied that's actually part of our obligation as a Government—to honour and apply the Treaty of Waitangi. So I do welcome the committee's work the Minister's work and a bill that's come to the House that's actually come about as a result of huge push over the years from the sector and that will enhance New Zealand's ability to uphold the rule of law and a fair system of justice.