Barker Rick: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — In Committee 
Barker Rick: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:676;Page:21594] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I want to speak on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. Firstly I congratulate the Minister of Justice on bringing this substantial piece of legislation to the House. I thank the Minister for his kind comments about me and say that I do share his views on this legislation. I was the Minister for Courts for some time and at a time when we had queues of people extending out of the court. I looked at our court system as an administrator not as a legislator or a lawyer. When I looked at how our courts were run I was dumbstruck. I could not think of a system that was as antiquated and out of date as our court system. 
On numerous occasions I have read—I do not know whether people here have read it—the brilliant trilogy by Mervyn Peake about Gormenghast and the 77th Earl of Groan. He takes a pot-shot at the British aristocracy and how ossified they were. The Earl of Groan has a Master of Ceremonies and at certain points of the day and at certain points of the week he requires the Earl of Groan to undertake a certain ceremony the purpose of which is long since forgotten and the meaning of which is completely irrelevant. But the Earl of Groan has to perform this ceremony. It is just a mind-boggling process. Well the nearest I have seen to Titus Groan the 77th Earl of Groan and the Master of Ceremonies existed in our court system. There were procedures that went on that had absolutely no relevance to the people there. They were required to turn up to court there would be a few words mumbled at the beginning of the session and then it would be all over and the person would leave. The defendant would ask what that was all about. The person who had an interest the victim might turn up to see what was going on too and they would ask what was happening and be told it was a call-over or it was this or it was that. If they asked why a certain thing happened the only explanation was that it was required—because the Master of Ceremonies said that it was required. 
We had large queues of people outside our courts at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and it was a shambles. The whole place was paper-based. I have never seen so much paper in my life. I asked the court staff why there was all this paper and they said it was a legal requirement—they had to have paper. I said that we conduct legal transactions in the Customs Service and there is not a piece of paper anywhere. They are all perfectly valid legal transactions and there is not a sheet of paper there. But I would go to court after court and there would be great stacks of paper hanging perilously over the staff. How they found their files I will never know. All of those things clogged up our court system. 
I started to make inquiries about what was going on and I have to say that there was a bewildering network of overlapping intersecting law that simply did not work. Each court was taken as its own jurisdiction; each High Court had its own systems. It was an absolute muddle. While all of that was sitting there more and more people were waiting to get through the court system. We could do everything possible to speed up the court system in terms of buildings staff and staff training but the system overwhelmed us. I started digging around and I came across the work that the Minister has referred to but it had stopped. It had stopped simply because it was too hard. I thought of that at the time and I remember saying to some of my justice staff: “Well shouldn’t we have the words of Kennedy when he sent the space rocket to the moon: ‘We go not because it is easy; we do it because it is hard.’ ”? Their faces were a bit white but we restarted the work. I have to say that a lot of this stuff dates back to 1947 and a lot of the legislation and the way in which the courts do things has remained unchanged since 1947. I would often remark to the staff: “Well have things not changed in New Zealand since 1947?”. They replied: “Of course Minister they have.” But nothing else has changed. 
This legislation is a fabulous piece of work and I think that the real issue here for this Parliament is that we have had Ministers of Justice of all hues for many years who have been really interested in the important principles of justice but very few have taken much interest in the administration of justice. I think that is to the detriment of the justice system and it reflects poorly on this Parliament. I hope that what happens subsequent to this legislation is that this Parliament continues to take a keen interest in the administration of justice because it is the administration of justice that is critical to the public’s perception of our justice system. If the public feel that the justice system is incompetent Mickey Mouse—dare I say it—and harking back to Gormenghast the Earl of Groan and the Master of Ceremonies they will treat our justice system with contempt. The public have a right to expect that our justice system is administered in the style or the manner in which the rest of our society is administered—fast efficient and effective. 
This is a fabulous piece of work but there is much more to do. One of the things that was very dear to my heart was to get rid of the paper and have an electronic system. I know the Minister is as keen on that as I am and a lot of good work has been done on that. It will not happen overnight but like the shampoo ad it will happen. It needs to happen because we have files that are missing files that only one person can deal with and so on. We have to have electronic files so they can be accessed by all and processed much more quickly. I have looked at electronic systems overseas and I am deeply impressed by how much more efficient they are than our paper-based filing system. We need to get on and fund this and improve the legislation so that we have an efficient administration of justice. 
I come back to the issue of jury trials. I agree with the comments made by the Minister of Justice when he talked about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the obligations of the system to take into account the interests of the victim as well as the interests of the defendant. The critical part of this is to have a system that brings cases to trial for decision quickly and promptly. We still have an unacceptable delay. But I think there is another argument in favour of shifting the threshold for jury trials and I will put it to the Green Party this way. It is a practical observation because I am a practical person. I want to back up the truck to another part of my job: I was responsible for dealing with making recommendations to the Governor-General on royal prerogatives of mercy. I had a case before me from a man who had committed rape quite some long time ago. This conviction for rape was impeding something he wanted to do which I will not tell members. I went through the case. A young woman who was a friend of his came by his house one night to see the man’s partner. He dragged her into the bedroom and raped her. This was a premeditated act a brutal act. When I read the case notes—the trial decisions were very short in the late 1950s—I was quite surprised but I was revolted. The thing that struck me most about the case was that for that rape the man received a 1-year jail sentence. 
In the context of this Parliament today that is unthinkable—utterly unthinkable. I say to the Green Party that many of the cases that were heard at that time would have had a similar threshold. What has happened in the last 30 or 40 years is that the sentences we impose for things have shifted dramatically and have gone upwards. A 3-month threshold when it was put in in the 1940s would have been for a very significant offence. The only thing that has not changed in this time has been the threshold for a jury trial. Had there been some process of indexing the threshold of the jury trial to the types of cases and the terms expected I say to the Green Party that we would have arrived very easily at a threshold for a jury trial that is much higher than what is proposed in the bill and nobody would have said a thing. 
A jury trial in the 1950s was rare because the threshold was high. But what has happened over succeeding generations of Parliament is that we have raised the threshold for cases we have raised the stakes in terms of the penalties but we have never raised the threshold for a jury trial. If one thinks about the 1950s a 1-year sentence for rape and the threshold for a jury trial at 3 months one is talking about a very serious offence. If this Parliament simply continued consistently along the argument of the Green’s view that 3 months was sacrosanct I respectfully suggest to the Green Party that in 40 50 or 100 years’ time a person would have access to a jury trial for a parking ticket. [ 
Interruption 
] Well I have to say that. The threshold would get that. Everything else moves but the threshold for a jury trial does not. There are times when this Parliament has to say that when all of the other elements of the justice system are moved then it is time for us to move the basis for a jury trial. I think that is a practical observation as well as the observation that other people have made. 
There are many things that can be said about this bill. I support it. I think it is a very good piece of work. I commend the Minister for his efforts on it. I also think that we will have to come back to my theme and look at the other elements of this. One of the other pieces of legislation that needs updating is the Judicature Act 1908. It is a fabulous piece of legislation. In another life I had to make submissions on for example people who had been erroneously paid holiday pay and had been overpaid. I always quoted the Judicature Act 1908. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Section 92A 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Section 92A. 
Hon Simon Power 
: That’s right. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: That is exactly right. But I have to say to the Minister in the chair that it won the case without anybody else because no one knew about the Judicature Act 1908. They said: “Wow!”. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Altered your position in reliance. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: Exactly. It was fabulous legislation. The point about this is that the Judicature Act covers a vast array of things but it is out of date. Again when I suggested that we embark upon a rewrite of the Judicature Act 1908 the officials went white as well because it would be very very difficult. I say to Parliament and to the Ministry of Justice that these are things that have to be done not because they are easy; we have to do them because they are hard. We have to do them to make sure that the administration of our justice system is what the public of New Zealand expects. Everything else is being administered differently and improving in its pace and efficiency and there is no reason for us to have an antiquated system of administering our courts—none whatsoever. I do not believe that a pile of people should turn up at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and have to wait there until 2 or 3 o’clock in the afternoon for their case to be heard. No hospital sends out a note saying: “Hip operations on Monday. Tell everybody who needs a hip operation to turn up at 10 o’clock and then you wait your turn for the surgeon to come to you.” No one else does that but our justice system does. 
There are many other aspects that our justice system practises that were appropriate and OK in the 1940s and early 1950s but they are not OK today. This Parliament must continue to update the administration of justice. If we do not do this the perception the public has of our justice system will fall well behind and they will not be getting the justice system they deserve. Thank you.