Ardern Jacinda: Judicature Modernisation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Judicature Modernisation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1727. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the second reading of the Judicature Modernisation Bill. Just for the many viewers out there who are no doubt keenly watching the debate as the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector rightly pointed out the modernisation of one of our oldest Acts of Parliament—this is what it looks like when you take on such a significant omnibus bill. There is a significant amount of detailed work that has gone into this bill. The Minister has touched on as much as she is able to in 10 minutes of what has been reformed.I want to speak in some general terms if I may in my first opportunity to speak on this bill. As has been said the Judicature Act is over 100 years old. I believe that amendments to this Act have been made up to 40 times over the years. It follows on from recommendations from the Law Commission as to what we should be amending. We as a party in the first instance did raise—and one has been touched on by the Minister—two areas of concern. I just want to cover them off very quickly before I make some more general points.The first was the omission from the purpose clause of any reference to a commitment to parliamentary sovereignty the rule of law judicial independence and the Treaty of Waitangi. We believed that in a piece of legislation that consolidates legislation that guides the governance of our judiciary it would make sense to have that purpose clause. We were bringing into the legislation bills that relate to our various courts and the Supreme Court Act 2003 already includes these terms. So why were they not carried over given that that was in one of our more modern pieces of legislation guiding the governance of our Supreme Court? Why was it not brought into this particular bill? So that remains a concern for the Labour Party. I did not feel that the Minister’s response adequately covered off that concern.The second area of concern was around the fact that the bill includes an age of retirement for judges. That is a very specific element of the bill where it is setting up guidelines for who should and should not serve on our judiciary. At various points in this debate the point has been raised as to whether or not we should limit based on age. The issue I want to raise—and perhaps I am best to do it after the dinner break seeing as I am going to be cut off and I would not want to lose my substantive—Kris Faafoi: Make a start.JACINDA ARDERN: —point. Perhaps I could make a start. My concern is that the general diversity within—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.JACINDA ARDERN: I have brought all the members to the yard because they all wanted to hear about my views on the diversity within the judiciary or perhaps what should be our aspiration for greater diversity within the judiciary because the Judicature Modernisation Bill amongst many many other things does set out an age of retirement for judges. The question that I was raising was this concern which was very eloquently summarised in a piece by Catriona MacLennan at the beginning of 2013 where she pointed out that at present 72 percent of New Zealand’s judges are male—72 percent—and 28 percent are female. In the Court of Appeal for instance 80 percent of judges are male. In the District Court 69 percent of judges are male. Before anyone makes the argument around meritocracy and availability of female lawyers the New Zealand Law Society magazine calculates that 3463 women are eligible for appointment as judges. So I just thought I would put out that challenge.Gender of course is not the only diversity we should be ensuring we have on our judiciary. There are no statistics on ethnic diversity in the judiciary. I have even asked for that. I am keen to ask again because the experiences the life experiences and the cultural competencies that we bring to the judiciary are incredibly important—incredibly important. Of course there is training that tries to teach all of those things but I think ensuring that our judiciary has a wide range of experience as well as legal expertise of course is something that we should be constantly mindful of. I wanted to raise that.Coming back to the Judicature Modernisation Bill the Law Commission was very clear in its key recommendations in the report it issued in November 2012 that the primary purpose of the review it was conducting was a simplification and modernisation exercise. In fact it has even stated that “The primary purpose of this review was to clarify and modernise the laws under which New Zealand’s primary trial and appellate courts are constituted. These laws determine how the courts are set up how judges are appointed their jurisdiction rule-making powers and the procedures by which they administer justice. Given the fundamental role of the courts in society it is imperative that this legislation be clear accessible and intelligible.” It then sets out the ways in which it has consolidated the Acts in order to achieve those goals.“Accessible” is the one word that stood out to me when I read that. Yes simplifying the language by which our judiciary is governed and structured is incredibly important but accessibility can be measured in many many ways. I recently read as I would hope other members in the House would have the Ethel Benjamin Address by Her Honour Justice Helen Winkelmann the Chief High Court Judge which was given in only November 2014. When she talked about the accessibility of our justice system she quoted Lord Neuberger and said that accessibility “has a number of components. First a competent and impartial judiciary; secondly accessible courts; thirdly properly administered courts; fourthly a competent and honest legal profession; fifthly an effective procedure for getting a case before the courts; sixthly an effective legal process; seventhly effective execution; eighthly affordable justice.”There are many elements within that that we could discuss and pick apart but I think the element that Justice Winkelmann rightly raised within her address is the affordability element. She went on to state that “there are indications that far from being viewed as a democratic institution civil courts are for policy purposes at least regarded as a luxury service for which users should pay. There is a new language that is used in connection with courts; people who come before the courts are called customers judges and lawyers are referred to as stakeholders District Court centres are referred to as franchises. We are now to understand that we are part of a market for justice services and our product is being ‘marketised’.” I know that there was some discussion in the first reading of this bill around that concern and it was shared. The Hon David Parker raised it and there was then some discussion by the Attorney-General acknowledging that concern. The reason I raise it now is that if we are to maintain that very important principle of access we must be constantly mindful of simple things like court filing fees and whether or not someone is able to access a lawyer. That is something that we have considerable concern about.Part 4of this bill for instance responds to the Law Commission’s report Aspects of Damages: The Award of Interest on Money Claims and creates a single statutory system for the awarding of judgments. It ensures that interest placed on awards is compounded rather than simple interest. It raises an interesting point: currently the interest rates that apply to the Judicature Act are much lower than the rates that apply to legal aid debt which sits at 8 percent. Anyone who accesses it is told that they may have a debt collector who may recover legal aid debt. I raise this because any attempt to modernise the rules that govern our judiciary are to be applauded and welcomed because of the principle of accessibility but we should make sure that we never lose sight of how well in real terms that is playing out for citizens in civil society. When the judiciary starts to raise that an increase in self-representation is perhaps demonstrating an issue within our court system and that the court costs are becoming prohibitive to the accessing of justice particularly within the civil courts we should listen—we should listen. I wish to use this opportunity in the second reading to raise that.In the third reading I would also like to come back to some of the other elements of the bill like for instance electronic technology which there is greater movement towards in the justice system generally but there have been examples where centralisation of the registry courts for instance in Auckland has not lead to efficiency or cost savings but actually to mistakes errors lost files and greater inefficiency. We should not just simply move rapidly towards gains without ensuring that they are rolled out in a way that does not hamper an already extraordinarily busy court system and a heavily burdened justice system. There is much more that could be said and I look forward to the opportunity to do that at the third reading. Thank you.