O'Rourke Denis: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9718. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First supports the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill. I would like to begin by congratulating the Associate Minister of Justice Chester Borrows on a good piece of legislation. I would like to congratulate the Justice and Electoral Committee on its work which it carried out in a constructive and non-political way. I would particularly like to congratulate the LawSociety and thank it for the quality of its contribution. It is fair to say that this piece of legislation would not be what it is without its input.The nature of the amendments this bill makes to various Acts is largely technical as others have said arising from the passing of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. Although technical only in nature they are still important and necessary amendments to keep the criminal law and procedure up to date. Failure to do so of course may result in some very unfortunate results.The amendments fall into four categories. The first is a number of cross-referencing and other minor technical fixes which form the bulk of the bill and are pretty straightforward in nature requiring no debate here. Secondly there are amendments to ensure that the procedures and processes under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 can be fully implemented to operate as intended and these are also straightforward.The most important amendments are those with references to crime in several statutes due to the repeal of the definition of “crime” in the Crimes Act 1961. An example of those is clause 4 which amends section 5 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and concerns interpretation. The amendment adds a definition of “imprisonable offence” and clause 32 amends section 11 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 which concerns the theft of controlled drugs. The amendments replace “crime” with “offence”.Clause 34 amends section 28 of the Summary Offences Act 1981 which concerns being found in a public place preparing to commit a crime. The amendments replace “crime” with “imprisonable offence”. Those are some examples of many amendments of that kind—simple in nature but very necessary and very important. So those are all measures that we can all easily support. They are good housekeeping amendments. Definitions in criminal legislation are of course of very high importance.Another amendment gives community magistrates jurisdiction to receive guilty pleas for certain category 2 offences being offences in respect of which community magistrates have sentencing jurisdiction. The opportunity is also taken to clarify with greater specificity other aspects of community magistrates’ jurisdiction. These also are sensible and necessary amendments which will improve aspects of criminal procedure.The Justice and Electoral Committee—mainly as a result of the input of the Law Society—recommended the deletion of clause 15(3)(h) of the Criminal Procedure Legislation Bill as introduced which contained a “Henry VIII” clause under which there would have been a regulatory power for the Minister of Justice to change the definition of “crime” effectively amending legislation. Indeed Henry VIII would have been proud of such a power and no doubt would have used it to the hilt. New Zealand First supports of course the deletion of this clause which was unnecessary and improper.The bill makes many such sensible amendments all of which are really just good housekeeping. New Zealand First will therefore vote for the bill which as I have already noted is largely technical in nature. It makes some simple and technical changes in relation to the good operation of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011.