Genter Julie Anne: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Genter Julie Anne: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 25 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5634. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou e te Whare. I rise to speak on the third reading of the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. This bill has three main purposes. One is to prevent certain people sentenced to home detention from serving on a jury. The second is to empower registrars to permanently excuse people with chronic ill health with a permanent disability or who are over the age of 65 if they choose to be permanently excused from jury service. Thirdly it seeks to protect more stringently the address particulars of jurors which I think is a laudable goal. 
I would echo the comments just made by the Hon Phil Goff who made quite a great case that actually this bill probably does not go far enough in today’s world of quick information particularly in the context of reducing availability of access to justice whether that be through downsizing community law centres or reducing people’s ability to access legal aid which will likely result in an increase in the number of defendants who are self-representing. It is entirely possible that we will see increased occurrences of defendants trying to access jurors and that is certainly something we want to discourage. 
The other main purpose that I would like to speak to—because it came up and was quite controversial in the Committee stage of the bill—was the question of whether or not it is discriminatory to allow people over the age of 65 to be permanently excused from jury service if they elect to be permanently excused. During that debate we heard arguments from the Labour Party and the New Zealand First Party that it was discriminatory but we found it hard to see how it would be discriminatory because it simply gave those people the choice. They already had the ability to be excused from jury service every single time they received a call to be on a jury and on every single occasion they would have to apply for dispensation. So this provision was giving the registrar the power to say that those people who had decided that they did not have the capacity desire or ability to serve on a jury would have the ability to make that application just once and not have to continually send in letters. Also thanks to the Minister of Justice’s acceptance of a suggestion that my colleague David Clendon made during his second reading speech there was the addition to the bill of a provision whereby if somebody had applied for this permanent dispensation from jury service and they changed their mind they could be put back on the roll. We thought that that was quite reasonable. 
But I think there is a significant public policy question which was raised by some of my colleagues on this side of the House. It is a separate question and it is not one that is addressed by this particular bill. It is whether we are doing enough to ensure that the population of New Zealand is able to serve on a jury that they are empowered to serve on a jury and that it is a thing of civic pride to actually be on a jury. The right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers is fundamental to our concept of democracy. It is true that as we go forward as we have an increasingly ageing population and as we face all sorts of pressure that families and working adults are under so they are often not able to serve on a jury because there simply is not the financial ability for them to take that much time off work we are going to have to do a lot of thinking as a nation as to how we make it possible and attractive for people of all ages to serve on juries so that we do continue to have this right to be judged by a jury of our peers. 
In conclusion the Green Party has no problem supporting this bill as it stands. We voted for it at all stages but we do think we are going to be facing challenges that are not addressed by this bill. It is really essential and fundamental to our democracy and the health of democracy that we find ways of addressing these issues about on the one hand access to justice and on the other hand the attractiveness of jury service to the citizens of New Zealand. Thank you. We commend this bill to the House.