Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise to speak to both these bills and leave aside the great raging dispute that's gone on in the House tonight between members from both sides about who in fact is responsible and should be commended for bringing these reforms to our criminal justice system or justice system as a whole. Leaving all of that aside I wanted to focus on some of the details in terms of the Courts Matters Bill that jumped out to me. This is a bill that covers matters from the very functional powers of security guards to the very complex procedures that apply where a person is claiming mental impairment and fitness to stand trial. That particular process is one that I've got some experience of and I know was absolutely nonsensical under the previous law. I was very happy to see the procedure reversed. Previously where a person was potentially unfit to stand trial—suffered from a disease of the mind which is the very high standard—the court would first hear in an actual disputed hearing whether or not the actual crime is likely to have occurred before that person had access to expert reports on their sanity. So as a lawyer where a client was potentially not fit to stand trial it was very hard to adduce from them for example alibis and things like that so you could even have that hearing. So essentially that's being reversed so that the expert psychological reports come first and if the person's not fit then the matter is disposed of—far more efficient.Many of the matters covered by this bill go to efficiency. One of the main ones is the procedure to use audiovisual links (AVL) in all sorts of new ways—so video linking to accused persons from where they're held for example for types of hearing where there's no need for them to attend. This does expedite proceedings but I would just note from the front lines of the justice system that not all procedures not all matters heard by the criminal courts are actually suitable for this kind of process. So while this is available and it will help to address the backlog in our courts it would be good to see the new funding that this Government is going to put into our justice system so that we do in fact have enough judges to hear things that do require a higher level of procedural safeguard like opposed bails for example that actually affect a person's rights not to be arbitrarily held. Where a person is using AVL in a process like that they very rarely have access to counsel who are in court and not able to speak with them via AVL.So moving on to the Tribunals Powers and Procedures Legislation Bill I would like to focus on the effects that this will have on the Human Rights Review Tribunal. We've heard tonight a few mentions of Rodger Haines QC which I was very happy to hear. He's just been honoured in the latest Queen's Birthday honours. He has been a world-renowned human rights lawyer focusing on refugee law which I wish most New Zealanders knew something about. He was the previous president of our refugee appeals authority and changed the world when he recognised the rights of the rainbow community to asylum. He is now the president of the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Justice Committee has heard from him about the backlog.Now those of us who have worked in the human rights sector know that the right to justice itself is in fact denied when it is so delayed that victims are waiting two years for a hearing and up to three years now for a decision. When we think about the types of cases that go to the Human Rights Review Tribunal these are discrimination cases privacy cases and cases that affect the disabled community.The last one that I had anything to do with was actually involving the family carers' case. So just to put into context the kind of cases that are coming through this tribunal and are so badly delayed the family carers case involved family members caring for their profoundly disabled loved ones without proper financial support. Where their family members were placed into corporate care they would get up to $70000 but the family carers were fighting to get minimum wage. So they brought a discrimination case—discrimination based on family relationship is unlawful in New Zealand—and they eventually won. It took them years. They won and the National Government passed legislation under urgency to cut the family carers off from the Human Rights Act's remedies regime—under urgency in the dead of night without consultation. These are important cases these are important issues and they are so delayed as to be waiting two years for hearing—two years vulnerable people.Debate interrupted.The House adjourned at 10 p.m.