Turei Metiria: Evidence Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Evidence Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20419] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting this bill to a select committee for further consideration. We are very pleased to see the work on this bill come to fruition. The fundamental presumption that evidence is admissible unless it is determined otherwise is a very sensible approach and we are pleased to see that the complex provisions that have been developed over time are getting some clarification and a degree of simplification. 
One of the things we are pleased to see although I confess I am not 100 percent aware of some of the previous legal situations in terms of children’s evidence is that it seems from the bill that the way children’s evidence is considered will be given some real consideration. Serious concerns have been raised about the way children’s evidence has been managed—those concerns particularly arising out of the high-profile civic creche case but in other cases as well—and there does need to be better management of the way children’s evidence is dealt with. The proposal in this bill that seems to ensure that there is a judicial conference before the matter goes to hearing in order to work out how to manage how that child complainant’s evidence is given seems like a very good provision to have. 
On reading the Law Commission’s report I note particularly for the House that the Law Commission said that children do have a very good capacity for detailed and accurate recall of events and things that happen to them. The commission did a lot of analysis and research with experts on child psychology and other areas of children’s evidence and it was very concerned that the previous situation where judges were required to give directions to juries that children’s evidence was to be considered with caution because of their natural tendency to fantasise and fabricate was not an appropriate way to approach children’s evidence. The Green Party completely agrees with that. Children’s evidence should not be dismissed as an immediate approach as a presumption. 
The commission goes on to say that it is not the evidence of the child that needs to be given special particular consideration but that scrutiny is needed of the manner by which that evidence was obtained from the child—the way the child was questioned and the circumstances that have led up to that child’s evidence. We think that is a very very important point and still deals with only part of that matter because of course it can deal only with evidence in court and the judicial process. But the commission’s approach is about the process by which that evidence is dealt with and the process by which the evidence is brought out of the child. It needs to be a very clean process and one that does not involve any kind of influence from others. It is very difficult to do that with children not to influence them because they are very very receptive to emotional states particularly of the adults around them. 
So we are very pleased to see that there seems to be a tendency in this bill that it is the manner by which evidence is obtained from a child that is as much under scrutiny as the evidence of the child itself. 
In the select committee we will be looking at the changes to the provisions about the defendant’s right to silence in criminal and civil cases. We are not particularly happy with what looks like the narrowing of the right to silence. I have to say that I am very surprised at ACT’s position on that. ACT’s position by arguing that a defendant’s decision not to give evidence should be or could be used as an inference of guilt on his or her part goes directly to the question of whether we have a justice system based on the principle that one is innocent until proven guilty. ACT seems to be saying that if a person makes a decision not to give evidence then that implies that person’s guilt. 
If we are to go to a position of a justice system—which would certainly not be a justice system it would be a legal system—where a person was presumed guilty until he or she was able to prove his or her innocence then we are completely transforming the system that we have and going in a direction that is not appropriate in this country and in this day and age. I do not understand how Stephen Franks could have come to that position on that issue. In fact the right to silence is a very very important right and privilege that defendants have and they need to be able to maintain that to the greatest degree possible. Certainly we should not be proposing any legislation to narrow that without extremely good research and evidence as to how it will enable and better the legal and justice process to do so. 
We are also concerned about the use of cell-mate confessions in criminal cases. Cell-mate confessions are highly prejudicial and of extremely dubious reliability. In the bill it appears that the judge is enabled to make a decision on the reliability of those kinds of confessions on the balance of probabilities. We are concerned that that is not a high enough test. We would like to see greater consideration given to those provisions. 
We look forward to hearing from submitters about those provisions. As much as some of us have been lawyers and perhaps even been in practice for many many years in this area after having spent some time in this House it is certainly true that we have got a bit rusty and we need to hear from practitioners and people who are involved daily right now in the court process criminal and civil to get a full and clear picture of what is needed in the courts at the moment. 
We note the provisions about anonymous witnesses which look as though they are just carried over from the existing law. However it does bring to mind the issue raised last year of women who wore the burka and their right to give evidence wearing a burka. The courts finally ruled that no they could not wear the burka and give evidence and they were required to expose their faces. The Green Party can certainly see the arguments on both sides—the rights of the accused to adjust process and the ability to assess the veracity of the evidence against him or her versus the cultural religious and human rights of the women who for whatever reason feel they are necessary. We can certainly see those two competing interests so we look forward to some information being brought to the select committee to see what people have to say about that and whether something about those issues in terms of evidence should also be specifically included in the bill or whether the provisions in this bill can be modified to deal with that situation as well in a way that meets those competing issues if at all possible. 
We are looking forward to seeing how this bill pans out in the select committee. We very much look forward to hearing from the submitters and we will be supporting this bill at its first reading.