Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Helensville): Thank you very much Mr Speaker for this opportunity to lead on the National side in terms of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. I think our starting point should be to acknowledge the seriousness of the possibility and indeed reality on occasion of miscarriages of justice. When a miscarriage of justice does occur that is an offence against the individual himself or herself who might have had liberty deprived or have otherwise been unfairly punished; another perpetrator if it's a case of mistaken identity will not have been held to account; and of course society as a whole will lose out in confidence in the system. It is no trivial matter—the system's ability to produce miscarriages of justice—so let me start by acknowledging on this side of the House that we do understand and recognise that before going on to our philosophy in relation to this particular proposal that has been put forward by the Government. I'd also like to address a comment that the Minister made in relation to the select committee process. The National Party understands and recognises that the bill is likely—indeed certain—to pass. The Government parties do support it. So with that inevitability it seems to us as responsible lawmakers that we should support changes that will improve the bill as it comes through select committee and beyond so there is no good reason for us not to be part of that process recognising the very practical suggestions being made by various submitters in support of the bill. A couple of those changes that the Minister's outlined and indeed I think some others of a more minor and technical nature we were happy to support to be produced by the select committee as a whole. Notwithstanding that as you will no doubt be aware—or if not you are now—we still feel unable to support the bill on this side of the House. The reason for that I'd like to step through in what I hope will be a pretty logical sort of fashion starting with the other possible priorities for reforming our criminal justice system as a whole to reduce the incidence of miscarriages of justice and possible miscarriages of justice also then looking a little bit at the detail of the set-up of the commission and then finally sort of wrapping up as best as time allows at that point. So our starting point was to consider whether there could be reforms to the criminal justice system such that there would be a reduction in the number of miscarriages of justice in the first instance. Recognising that prevention is better than cure we would prefer to see the Government turn its collective mind at least in the first instance to ensuring the safety of the system such that unsafe convictions are less likely to arise in the first place. The next possibility—adopting a pretty logical approach I hope—is to then consider whether it might be possible to reform existing structures. There are some points that Minister Little has made about ways in which the current system of appeal and safeguards—I suppose we could broadly say—is potentially inadequate and we think that there is potential for reforming those as an alternative to setting up this other system. I'll go through those very shortly. In fact first of all to note the obvious there are appeal rights through the existing court system notwithstanding limitations in terms of access to those but also for the sake of completeness I will note with the royal prerogative of mercy currently executed—that's the word I want—through the office of the Governor-General but based on the advice in the Ministry of Justice office. There is no good reason that the Government shouldn't consider providing additional resources or powers to that team within the Ministry of Justice. I note Minister Little's objection that it doesn't currently have those resources and powers currently notwithstanding that it carries out that function. So that's a possibility that we're somewhat concerned doesn't appear to have been considered. So we're not even ending up in a situation where there's a reform in the real sense of the word whereby the existing structure would be set aside and replaced with this new body but in fact we'd have an extra layer. We would have this new beast called the Criminal Cases Review Commission but we'd still also have that somewhat anomalous situation whereby the Governor-General would be available to issue pardons. So neither fish nor fowl is the new entrant into the field of criminal justice and we think that it's somewhat of a half-measure that the Government's proposing to go about it this way. I note the very real and I think reasonable concerns of the Minister of Justice regarding access to the structures—for example the appeals. He is right to acknowledge that there are some groups in society who are less able and historically the statistics indicate have accessed these structures and these avenues less frequently. That might be for reasons financial cultural—perhaps relating to the acceptance of authority by some ethnic groups more readily than others—language and/or education barriers or in particular by persons who are determined to be criminals. Often times there's a link between disadvantage of a more general kind and a person's likelihood of ending up in the criminal justice system or it might be a personal disadvantage I suppose in the manner of perhaps an injury or a learning difficulty or some other limitation in engaging with the system and knowing that one has the ability to appeal and say Sir/Ma'am I didn't do this thing of which I've been convicted and I'd like to have a crack at overturning it."Society shouldn't rely on the champions as Minister Little has called them or white knights as we might also refer to them—using somewhat archaic language—and so it is that we should take seriously the lack of access to justice but all of those obstacles are not insurmountable by other means and again it seems as though the Government has preferred this shiny new object that is this new commission rather than considering means of publicising the availability of different kinds of recourse or perhaps reforming the court structures themselves to enable a faster and less expensive process. Again all these things appear not to have been considered and we would have preferred that in the first instance. As to the other key function of the commission as set out in the bill we've dealt with the primary function as it's known but the secondary function—if we can call it that—is thematic inquiries where the commission will be tasked to look into patterns and trends of miscarriages of justice. I would point out again on the theme really of emphasising that this is an exercise somewhat in redundancy that all branches of Government have at least some sort of role in that. Obviously the judiciary is pretty constrained in its ability to be able to see patterns as a whole and recommend. Naturally we want our courts to continue to focus on one case at the time but the executive branch of Government through the Law Commission the Ministry of Justice the legislative programme of the Government of the day has avenues of identifying and enacting upon these trends that become perceptible from time to time. We have the legislative branch of Government—this Parliament and its select committees—which of course can hold thematic inquiries as well and it is worth bearing in mind as well of course the legal academy. That is to say that legal scholars who take an interest in these things—quite rightly—should and I would say certainly do already notice trends in these areas and can make very serious recommendations. So too the fourth estate and I think it's worth acknowledging the popular role—and I mean that in both senses of the word "popular"—of podcasts particularly of true crime stories and unravellings of history if we can sort of glibly call it that. So there are lots of opportunities already for uncovering miscarriages and possible miscarriages of justice and I think that we should not discount those so readily as it appears that we're in danger of doing. Turning as my final category to the detail we've talked about changes that we've been happy to accept but a couple are worth noting. One is that as the Minister has acknowledged we have said in our National Party minority view within the select committee report that we'd like to have some explicit acknowledgment of the effect on victims of a crime such that if a person is in danger of being revictimised by having their case essentially reopened albeit by the Criminal Cases Review Commission rather than a court proper then there'll be an element of them being retraumatised and potentially having to go through all that and relive that again which is unfortunate if it should be the case that the crime had in fact occurred as has already been the case. Darroch Ball: It's a ridiculous statement to make. CHRIS PENK: This is why we have an appeals process Mr Ball and this is why we have these structures and these avenues already. Finally it's unfortunate the membership of the commission doesn't guarantee that there's a New Zealand - trained and experienced criminal lawyer because that would be an absolute minimum requirement. For all these reasons we are unable to support the bill at this stage and beyond. Thank you."