Bishop Chris; Rurawhe AdrianCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. I know why this bill has come about and no one denies that it is well-intentioned because no one in the Parliament wants there to be miscarriages of justice. No one in the New Zealand Parliament wants people to be wrongly convicted—Kieran McAnulty: Lawrence Yule does.CHRIS BISHOP: —of crimes. No Lawrence Yule does not want that. Don't be silly. Don't be silly Mr McAnulty.Where this bill came about was because of a spate of cases over the last 10 years—the Bain case the Teina Pora case the ongoing saga to do with Peter Ellis down in Christchurch. The Labour Party decided for reasons best known to themselves that one solution to the problem of alleged miscarriages of justice—and I'll come back to that—was a criminal cases review commission.Jacinda Ardern the now Prime Minister—I was on the Justice and Electoral Committee with her along with Jacqui Dean and others in the last Parliament. She was very keen on this idea. A lot like when the Prime Minister makes policy—she sees something that sounds quite good and she doesn't do the real homework on it and doesn't do the reading on it. Oh we'll have a review commission. Oh that sounds great. The United Kingdom's got one so if it's good enough for the United Kingdom it's good enough for New Zealand." And now poor old Andrew Little the Minister of Justice has been handed the hospital pass of trying to make this into reality and trying to grapple with actually some pretty complex underlying criminal law issues to put this into place. I will come to some of the issues that are not dealt with in the bill so far. So I acknowledge completely the intention—it's a sound one; it's a good one.But the first and most important point I want to make—and it deals with the member who is scarpering out which is Priyanca—is they have not—Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Full name.CHRIS BISHOP: Priyanca Radhakrishnan. The Government has not made the case in my view for how the current system does not work.Let's look at the examples that Ms Radhakrishnan talked about. She said "Oh there are lots of notable examples in the recent past of miscarriages of justice." OK—the David Bain case. David Bain was convicted in 1994 for the murder of his family. He went to prison. He eventually went through the legal process and went all the way up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council which ordered a retrial which quashed his convictions in order to retry him in 2009 largely on the basis of the new evidence that Joe Karam was able to introduce around the luminol footprints. OK fair enough. The new trial was held I think a couple of years or so later. David Bain was not convicted of those crimes; he is a free man. Well why do we need a criminal cases review commission? What would a criminal cases review commission have done for David Bain? David Bain appealed with fresh evidence. He went up to the Judicial Committee they quashed his conviction he was retried he was found not guilty and he's a free man. Why do we need a criminal cases review commission?What about the other example—Teina Pora. The same thing happened. Teina Pora's convictions were quashed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council largely on the basis of new scientific evidence around foetal alcohol syndrome disorder and whether or not he actually was guilty of the murder of Susan Burdett. Again why do we need a criminal cases review commission? His conviction was quashed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.Mark Lundy—Mark Lundy went through the various processes. Mark Lundy appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the grounds that he couldn't possibly have committed the murder of his wife and his daughter at that time. There was evidence around the McDonald's that they'd consumed the night before there was the question of was he able to get back to the Foreshore Motor Lodge in Pētone—which incidentally is about 45 metres from my house as it happens—and whether or not he could go back there in enough time to make it back to Palmerston North. And of course there's that evidence around the human tissue that was found on—I think it was a T-shirt found in his car. There was new evidence adduced by Mr Lundy and his lawyers at the Privy Council around the testing technique that the police used back in 2000 in Palmerston North and his conviction was quashed. Then he was retried and actually he was found guilty. Actually the police completely changed their theory of the case or the Crown changed its theory of the case and it turned out that they made a much more obviously convincing case for him being the guilty suspect. So again why do we need a criminal cases review commission?A Labour member over there said before "Well it took a long time." Well look actually these things do take a long time and I'm telling you now that once this Criminal Cases Review Commission is established it will take a long time for people who think they can make use of its resources to go through the process and that's without even talking about all of the unknown elements of the system.For example will the system be amenable to judicial review? I'm telling you now if there's judicial review available for what should be a public body applying public law principles then that is going to literally insert another whole massive layer of appeals inside an appeal system as it is—OK? If you think the Kim Dotcom saga was bad with multiple different chains of litigation and multiple chains of appeal around essentially what's a pretty simple case of should he be extradited or not and what is it seven or eight years later we're no closer to that decision actually going to the Minister for a decision—if you think that's bad because it's largely judicial review and appeals that have caused that then you have not seen anything yet when it comes to the proposed Criminal Cases Review Commission.So I just simply ask the House and ask the Government—all of the cases they have made reference to and have averred to in their speeches have been dealt with through the traditional criminal process. The second point is what is superior about the Criminal Cases Review Commission compared to the royal prerogative of mercy? It's not clear to me how it will be superior because Raymond Huo who's the chair of the Justice Committee just spent quite a degree of time in his speech talking about how it largely replicates the elements of the royal prerogative of mercy and it seeks to basically enshrine that into a formal statutory process. So what is superior about this process?The system we have now I believe works well. I believe it is effective and I believe I've pointed to examples of the criminal justice system working effectively to remedy wrongs committed during the system. I've listened to all the Government speeches and beyond pious words around "We've got to make justice work for everyone." and stuff like that which no one disagrees with—beyond kind of "motherhood and apple pie" sanctimony which we're used to from the Labour Party they have not made a credible case for the Criminal Cases Review Commission.I'll repeat what I said at the start of my speech: it largely reflects the work that was not done by Jacinda Ardern the Prime Minister who was the then justice spokesperson in Opposition when a spate of these cases were going through the courts. Very very high-profile cases—Bain Pora the ongoing drama to do with Peter Ellis—and like a lot of Labour Party policy it sounded like a good idea: "We'll chuck it in the manifesto and see what happens. We'll probably never have to implement it." Well now we do and I'm sorry but the bill that has been presented to the House so far is a shocker.Let's talk about the actual issues to do with the bill which have been canvassed already. One-third of the people on the commission have to be lawyers—one-third? One-third? This is essentially an appellate body right? This is a body that is going to weigh up evidence and if it believes that it's in the interests of justice—because that's the test—it can then refer those cases back to the appeal court. One-third have to be lawyers? Seriously—one-third? I mean seriously—only a third? We're going to get people—I'm in no doubt that there will be smart people on it but one-third? This is a body that is going to deal with the most fine-grained issues of criminal procedure. That's the reason why there's a Criminal Cases Review Commission in the first place. That's the reason why the cases are going to end up there because the admissibility of evidence is really complicated. That was true in Bain it was true in Lundy and it was true in Teina Pora as well. These are really tricky issues and the Government wants to put on the Criminal Cases Review Commission two-thirds non-lawyers. It's an absolute shocker.What about the rules about how this is all going to operate? It's not subject to the Official Information Act—that's bizarre. What about the rules of contempt of court? Does that apply? We've got no idea. What about the rules about the privilege against self-incrimination? We have no idea. The rules of evidence—will they be applicable in the appellate body and will they then be applicable again in the court that it gets referred to? We have no idea. The Government has not made the case. This is a shocker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired."