Radhakrishnan Priyanca; Rurawhe AdrianPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is indeed a pleasure to take a call to speak on the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill even though I'm not a lover of torts myself unless they're of the chocolate variety unlike my colleague the member Dr Duncan Webb. It is however a bill of conflict and international intrigue and in fact as my colleague Dr Webb mentioned even enticement.The Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill introduces a valuable reform and will bring an important part of New Zealand's private international law into the 21st century. The bill is concerned with the rules for choice of law in tort. I understand choice of law" refers to a stage of litigation involving conflicting laws when differences between laws of different jurisdictions need to be resolved. Where a New Zealand court is faced with a tort claim that contains an international or a cross-border element—so basically where the tort happens in two jurisdictions—choice of law rules tell the judge how to identify the system of law or the set of rules that will apply to assess this claim.Currently New Zealand law applies the double actionability rule which was developed by English cases back in the 19th century. Where the court is faced with a tort that was committed overseas but is brought to action in New Zealand it has to be actionable in both countries—so basically in the country or in the jurisdiction where it happened and also in New Zealand. The New Zealand court or domestic courts can hear the claim only if the tort is actionable in both jurisdictions. This doesn't seem to be very logical to me and neither did it to the two people and organisations that submitted on this bill. To my mind and to them it would be much more logical to apply the law of the jurisdiction where the tort actually happened.This is exactly what the Private International Law (Choice of Law in Tort) Bill will achieve. This bill will get rid of the double actionability rule. If you look at clause 6 that's exactly what that particular clause is about. The next clause clause 7 creates a general rule which is called the place of wrong rule—basically referring to the jurisdiction where the tort occurred. Clause 7(1) establishes the place of wrong rule in which "the applicable law is the law of the jurisdiction in which the events constituting the tort in question occur." Under this clause the general rule is that basically it's the law of that jurisdiction the place where it happened that will apply. That seems sensible to me.Basically in summary these are the aspects of the parts of this legislation that the bill we're debating will change. It will abolish the double actionability rule. It will establish a place of wrong—so it not only abolishes one part of the legislation that doesn't make a lot of sense and actually is quite an archaic piece of legislation but it also moves it into a different space. It establishes which law will apply in that particular instance. It provides rules also—and this is the third part of the bill—to determine where a tort can be said to have occurred where the events occur in more than one jurisdiction. So in the first case we're talking about what we do in a domestic court of law when the tort has taken place overseas. There are also rules in this legislation if it happens over two jurisdictions over more than one jurisdiction. There are quite a few instances of that and I'll go into something that's called the passing off tort in due course which is quite interesting.It also provides for an exception to the place of wrong rule allowing a court to apply the law of another jurisdiction where substantially more appropriate to do so. I will get back to this point in a minute but just to take a step back because like many in this House I'm not exactly a lawyer myself and those who are watching as well may not understand what exactly tort law is. So I've just got a definition that I will read to shed some light on what exactly we're debating here. Now tort law is defined as a body of rights obligations and remedies applied by courts in civil proceedings to provide relief for persons who have suffered harm from the wrongful acts of others. The person who sustains injury or suffers pecuniary damage as a result of "tor-chiss"—"tor-teeus"—conduct is known as the plaintiff—Hon Judith Collins: Tortious.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —tortious; thank you I was quite sure it wasn't torturous but I wasn't quite sure what it was—and the person who is responsible for inflicting the injury and incurs liability for that damage is known—and I like this particularly—is known as the defendant or the "tort-feesa" is it? The tort-fees—Hon Members: Tortfeasor.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: Tortfeasor yes. I thought that was particularly fascinating when I read this. Examples of tort include car accidents false imprisonment defamation and copyright infringement as well. So imagine this: a car accident happens overseas say in a country like Malta—and this is actually a case that was one of the more famous cases when it comes tort law and actually to this particular double actionability rule—and it's brought to the New Zealand courts for action. I'm not too sure why that would be but anyway in that famous case Boys v Chaplin that's kind of what happened. The accident itself happened in Malta the action was brought to a different court—it was the UK I think in that particular case but say it's to New Zealand. Currently it would have to be actionable in both Malta and in New Zealand for it to be actioned here or for the action to be brought here. This bill will change that.However clause 8 which talks about—I have it right here clause 8 of the bill which allows the general rule to be displaced where it is substantially more appropriate for the law of another country to apply taking into account the significance that factors connecting the tort with each jurisdiction would actually allow as in this case—in Boys v Chaplin it actually allowed for the case to be brought to action in the UK and for UK law to apply. Now this is actually a slightly vague clause a slightly vague part of this bill. So while we support this bill—I support this bill and the Labour Party supports this bill—it's not perfect as bills often aren't. This part particularly is little bit vague and a little bit confusing.So there's this tort apparently that's called passing off and it's an economic tort. What it does is for example if I were to steal a brand like McDonald's perhaps and start my own chain of burger places here—Michael Wood: Or even that Eminem song.PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —yes or an Eminem song yes; if I were to steal that rip it off and just use it without any permission—that apparently would be liable for passing off. Now this could happen on the internet. The digital age that we live in when it intersects with real life could have real problems. This particular clause clause 8 opens us up to some vagueness when it comes to those sorts of areas because that doesn't actually happen in a specific jurisdiction does it? It happens potentially across multiple jurisdictions potentially in cyberspace which I'm not sure is actually a jurisdiction under law. Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's a good bill and we support it for a number of reasons but it's not perfect and perhaps there are specific aspects of this bill that could be further clarified or further defined.The reason we support this bill however is that there is actually strong international judicial and academic consensus that the double actionability rule is not fit for purpose that it is unwieldy that it doesn't make a lot of sense really and that it sets us apart or it keeps us—it doesn't move us into a space where we are comparable or we move into a space alongside comparable jurisdictions.So basically it's not fit for purpose. It's been abolished by a number of other countries other jurisdictions that we like to compare ourselves with—for example the United Kingdom Australia Canada and I understand that there's been proposals for change in Singapore as well. It's been debated quite a bit there. The rule also confuses the question of jurisdiction—so which court should hear the claim—with the choice of law which set of rules or which law should the court apply. So that's a little bit problematic as well.The other part that I found quite interesting was when I was reading some of the submissions—well one of two submissions—to this bill. One of the submitters pointed out in their submission that this is quite an archaic piece of law—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I apologise to the member. I forgot to ring the bell. The member's time is up."