Dyson Ruth: Succession (Homicide) Bill — Second Reading 
Dyson Ruth: Succession (Homicide) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:8985] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Labour) 
 on behalf of the 
 Associate Minister of Justice 
: I move  
That the Succession (Homicide) Bill be now read a second time 
. The Succession (Homicide) Bill arose from a 1997 Law Commission report on the judge-made rule that a killer cannot inherit from his or her victim’s estate. That report was part of the commission’s wider review of succession law. The commission concluded that although the rule was well accepted it was unclear how it should be applied in some cases. The commission recommended enacting legislation to codify and clarify the general rule. This bill is based on the Law Commission’s report and is one of a suite of recent Government bills giving effect to Law Commission reports. 
I would like to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its thorough and efficient consideration of the bill. I endorse its amendments. The committee made a number of sensible changes to the bill and I would like to comment on some of the key changes. The committee made an important change to the treatment of cases whereby a killer and his or her victim own property as joint tenants. Joint tenancy is a form of co-ownership of property. When a joint tenant dies his or her share in the property automatically passes to the surviving joint tenant or tenants. It would be repugnant to allow a person who killed a fellow joint tenant to automatically receive the victim’s share of the jointly owned property in the normal way. The bill therefore treated a person who killed a fellow joint tenant as having died before the victim. That would have resulted in the killer losing his or her entire interest in the joint tenancy. However if the joint tenants were in a relationship then the killer could have reclaimed an interest in the property under the Property (Relationships) Act. The same would not have applied to other joint tenants—for example if the killer and victim were siblings. That could have produced inconsistent results. 
I therefore endorse the amendment to clause 8 that now provides that the killing of one joint tenant by another joint tenant will instead be treated as converting the joint tenancy into a tenancy in common. The killer victim and any other joint tenants will each retain a share in the property. That amendment is also consistent with the policy that although killers should not be able to benefit from their crime neither should they be deprived of prior interests. 
Clause 12 which allows a caveat to be lodged to prevent registration of a transmission by survivorship of property held in a joint tenancy when one joint tenant is alleged to have killed another joint tenant has also been amended to reflect the amendments to clause 8 and to improve its operation. The bill seeks to prevent killers from benefiting from their wrongdoing without depriving them of pre-existing entitlements. That means that the killer can still claim against a victim’s estate under the Law Reform (Testamentary Promises) Act. That Act applies when a person is providing work or services to the deceased in return for the deceased’s promise to reward him or her in the deceased’s will. If the deceased failed to reward that person as promised then he or she can claim against the estate. 
However as introduced the bill could have produced inconsistent results in relation to those promises. Clause 7 prevents a killer from receiving anything under the victim’s will. If the victim kept his or her promise and provided for the killer in the victim’s will then that disposition would be revoked by clause 7 but the killer could not claim under the testamentary promises legislation. Claims can be made only if the deceased actually failed to make provision in his or her will. 
In this case the victim did make provision but it was revoked by clause 7. That meant that the killer would have been better off if the victim failed to keep a promise in his or her will to reward the killer—an odd result. The bill has been amended to provide that a killer can claim under the testamentary promises legislation regardless of whether the victim actually provided for the killer in the victim’s will. I agree with that amendment which is consistent with the policy that killers should not be deprived of pre-existing rights. In this case the killer is being compensated for services already provided and in respect of which the killer has a prior expectation of reward. 
As introduced the bill set out the procedure for establishing whether a person had committed homicide for the purposes of the bill in three scenarios: firstly where the alleged killer has been prosecuted and convicted in New Zealand; secondly where the alleged killer has been prosecuted in New Zealand but acquitted on the grounds of insanity; and thirdly where the alleged killer has not been prosecuted in New Zealand at all whether or not they were prosecuted elsewhere. The bill did not specify the procedure whereby an alleged killer has faced criminal proceedings in New Zealand but been acquitted other than on the grounds of insanity. In such cases someone could still assert in civil proceedings that for the purposes of the bill the alleged killer committed homicide. The bill has been amended to clarify that the same procedure applies in this case as when the person has not been prosecuted at all in New Zealand. A court can decide on the balance of probabilities whether the alleged killer is guilty of homicide for the purposes of the bill or whether he or she is not guilty by reason of insanity. This makes the application of the bill clearer and avoids any confusion as to procedure. 
As introduced clauses 10 and 11 of the bill preserved certain of the killer’s pre-existing entitlements and interests provided they were not rendered more certain more immediate or more valuable by the victim’s death. The words “more immediate” have been deleted from clauses 10 and 11 and I agree with that change. The words could have been misunderstood as meaning that the interest had to be withheld from the killer until the time of the victim’s likely natural death. That would be impractical and was not intended. The real concern is that a killer’s interest should not be improved or made more valuable as a result of the killing. 
In conclusion I would like to again thank the Justice and Electoral Committee for its careful and detailed consideration of this bill. The committee’s amendments promote certainty and clarity and are entirely consistent with the overall policy of the bill. I commend this bill to the House.