Worth Richard: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16613] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 This issue that we are now debating—Part 5 of the Criminal Procedure Bill which National supports; National supports the whole bill—has deeply divided the legal profession and if it can be justified it can be justified only on the aspiration that it may speed up the criminal process. There is no doubt about it at all—the Government has realised how wrong its approach was either in the course of the Law and Order Committee hearing or more recently. The relevant provision is section 180 in clause 92 and is headed “Determination of application for oral evidence order”. Subsection (1) is the critical provision: “Before a District Court Judge makes an oral evidence order on an application … the Judge must be satisfied—(a) if the proposed order is for the oral examination of a witness who has provided a formal written statement that it is necessary to hear the witness in order to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to commit the defendant for trial;”. There are other provisions that are not relevant to the issue that we are now talking about. The reality of what was in that drafting is that no oral evidence orders would ever have been made; no oral evidence applications would ever have been granted. The reason for that is that there is always a substantial amount of material that would generally enable a judge or a justice of the peace to conclude that there was sufficient evidence. The Government has recognised that; it has made changes now by way of two Supplementary Order Papers and significantly for this particular part it has provided that where it is in the interests of justice to hear the witness such orders may be able to be made. 
Although I accept what the previous speaker has said and has said eloquently we need to look at the Criminal Procedure Bill as a whole. I think that National’s misgivings would have been even deeper if there were not these wide-ranging provisions for better criminal disclosure. As Chester Borrows has said with all the experience that he has as a lawyer and as a very senior police officer there are huge deficiencies around the criminal disclosure process. I hope that this Government in the short and further time that it remains in office gives urgent consideration to that issue and ensures that when this legislation is passed insufficiency of criminal discovery will warrant clear attention by the Parliament if it continues. We see some provisions in this bill that go some way to dealing with that issue. There are of course statutes such as the Official Information Act that bear on criminal discovery but unless criminal discovery has a true integrity then the arguments that have been so well urged on us by Mr Borrows will be real threats to the integrity of the legal system. 
I just say that this proposal which initially had as its object the elimination of mandatory preliminary hearings would mean that witnesses would testify only once in court. The argument was that by so limiting witness involvement it would free valuable court time. We have heard I think a credible argument that that in fact may not be so. Certainly there has to be a judgment made in the future as to whether these changes have merit and that is dealt with in the second part of Supplementary Order Paper 206 with the provisions relating to the review by the Solicitor-General or a person nominated by him or her. 
I leave the issue by saying that those who have listened to this debate will judge that National has some real concerns about supporting this part even in its amended form. It may well be that the review indicates that what has happened today was in fact an error.