Naylor Jono: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1136. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National):It is a great pleasure to rise to speak to this bill and to speak against it as many of my colleagues on this side of the House—and in fact on the other side of the House—already have. Members’ bills are a really important part of the legislative process because they do give the opportunity to bring fresh ideas forward and to I guess look at some issues that perhaps otherwise would not have been looked at. When bringing forward a member’s bill I think it is really important that it does serve some sort of purpose. We had a New Zealand First member today who brought a little bit of multi-choice to question time. I thought to myself that there was a little bit of multi-choice when relating to member’s bills. I think they need to (a) fix a problem (b) prevent some sort of problem (c) take New Zealand forward (d) all of the above or (e) as is the case I think perhaps with this one achieve none of the above.We are not going to be fixing a particular problem because the case that keeps being referred to around this issue involving Justice Wilson would not have been fixed by a register of pecuniary interests and the issues surrounded by that. It is not going to prevent any particular problems because I believe we have got the right kind of judicial system within our country to prevent them already. As has been highlighted by the Attorney-General already there is legislation in the pipeline to add some strength to that. It is not going to take New Zealand forward. This I guess has been reinforced by the various submitters to the Justice and Electoral Committee including some of those referred to a moment ago by the Attorney-General who have some real expertise in this area. It has been deemed not to be necessary to pass such a bill at this time.I say this because it is quite clear that we have a judiciary that has been appointed because of its expertise because of its ability to carry out the tasks that we have assigned to it to do. It is already clear that if a judge has a pecuniary interest in the outcome of a case they are automatically disqualified from hearing it and should in fact recuse themselves. If there is any doubt the judge has a duty to disclose this and failure to disclose a conflict can amount to misconduct and a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner.It was really interesting to hear the previous speaker Denis O’Rourke. He talked in one breath—for some reason I could not understand—about the importance of protecting the judiciary’s privacy and that it is why we would not have this register of pecuniary interests but then just prior to talking about the importance of privacy he talked about how he thought the appropriate response for a judge would be to have looked at the case and identified that perhaps they had a conflict and then discuss it with parties. I could not understand that. Why if you are trying to protect privacy issues would you then discuss it with parties? There has clearly been some misunderstanding around some of those things.But I think if we are going to trust our judiciary with an ability to be able to disclose a conflict where necessary it is perhaps beholden on us to have a look at what sorts of people we have occupying our judicial benches around New Zealand. I took the liberty of looking through the process—as the Attorney-General said it is available on the Ministry of Justice website—to find out exactly what somebody needs to do to find themselves in a position whereby they are sitting on a judge’s bench. I can tell you that it is not something that just happens lightly. It is something that takes a bit of process and some expertise to ensure that we have the right people there. The appointment process goes something like this with one exception which is community magistrates. Appointments to judicial positions are made by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Attorney-General. It is not just down to those two people either. In fact there are other things that come into it. The constitutional importance of the judicial role and the fact that judges have to make decisions that significantly affect the liberties and rights of our citizens make it vital that those who become judges are suitable to hold the office. We need to make sure that they are in fact suitable. There are some criteria that they need to exhibit. They need to have legal ability which means that they need to have sound knowledge of the law and experience of its application.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Can I just ask the member now to come back to the bill which relates to the pecuniary interests of judges rather than their appointment. I think a passing reference is OK but reading the list of requirements is not.JONO NAYLOR: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I guess my reason for using those initial things and I will not necessarily read through the whole list is that it is very clear to me that actually we are appointing people because they have personal honesty and integrity because they have got all the traits that they need to have in order to—Kris Faafoi: Carry out.JONO NAYLOR: —carry out the job. Thank you very much. I am not sure who said that but that was very helpful. Thank you very much. At this time of the night I am happy to get any help I can to find the right words particularly when half of one’s speech has just been disqualified by the Assistant Speaker.Stuart Nash: Sit down then.JONO NAYLOR: I could do that but where would the fun in that be? Anyway I promised to bore my colleagues to tears so that they can have a good night’s sleep tonight and I intend to carry out what I said I would do for them.Hon Member: The member has done that already.JONO NAYLOR: Ha ha! There is possibly that case.Anyway we do go actually through a process. As I said I am not going to highlight the entire process but what I will say is this: if we have the right judges if they are of good character and if they have been vetted appropriately why saddle them with another pecuniary interest register in this case? Pecuniary interest registers do make sense for people like us who are publicly elected—those of us who have to be accountable to the public in a very open way for everything that we do. It makes sense for politicians to have pecuniary interest registers. It actually makes sense as the promoter of this bill has said that in the US judges do have pecuniary interests because in the US judges like us are elected by the people at large and so therefore it does make a whole lot more sense in those situations.I think ultimately the important thing though in this case as we move forward is that we have had some clear steering from the Attorney-General—although there is not necessarily a specific problem—to give people more surety about the times and places where judges will recuse themselves. That is going to be incorporated into the legislation that he is bringing forward.So I would like to say again that we will not be supporting this bill. Although I understand the sentiment behind it we think that the mechanism is flawed and we believe that there are other ways that this can this dealt with.