Huo Raymond: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHuo Raymond: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16404. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RAYMOND HUO (Labour): Crime affects society and in that regard everybody else but it is the victim who is on the receiving end who pays the ultimate price. Any member who has been exposed to media reports should support this bill the Victims of Crime Reform Bill. It is regrettable that the good work of the previous Minister ofJustice the Hon Simon Power has not been continued in an effective manner. It is disappointing that it took more than a year and a half for the bill to get to its second reading after it was reported back from the Justice and Electoral Committee. In 2007 under the Labour Government the Justice and Electoral Committee conducted an inquiry into victims’ rights. The inquiry highlighted some of the issues that have been eventually addressed by this bill.There are some problems with our justice system. Our adversarial criminal justice system is bipartite and the problem is that it seems to recognise only the accused and the prosecution. It is not fair to the victims and their families. Victims feel marginalised by the court system and their anguish is often exacerbated by the justice process and the adversarial criminal justice system. Victims and their families have to deal with their ongoing trauma and often they have to deal with that long after a crime has faded from public memory. Borrowing Mr Power’s words: “With the State prosecuting offenders on behalf of victims and the community victims can feel sidelined.” He said: “Victims can find the criminal justice system bewildering and have expressed frustration and a sense of helplessness in the face of a system that is slow and unresponsive to their needs.” We have been exposed to a number of such reports in the media.At the moment victims of violence and other serious offences must ask permission from the judge to read out victim impact statements. They are often banned from mentioning a range of details and some victims have been left upset after the police or the judge have heavily edited or censored their statements. The victims were also critical of the limitations they faced in the courts when preparing the victim impact statement. They believed that victims should have the right to say whatever they felt in the victim impact statements. The bill will give victims more freedom to express their feelings in their own words. The bill makes it an automatic right for victims to read a statement before sentencing. The victims of a crime committed by a child or young person can now submit a statement to the Youth Court and attend a hearing.A victims code will be established which the police the Department of Corrections the Ministry of Justice the Ministry of Social Development the Labour Department Crown Law Office etc. will all have to adhere to. After hearing that all these different organisations and ministries are not synchronised in any way it does make sense that this bill seeks to set up a victims centre as a one-stop shop for services. I agree with what the previous Minister of Justice Mr Simon Power said which is that we could never legislate away the pain and suffering faced by victims. However the reforms introduced under this bill will help ensure that victims are not re-brutalised by their participation in the process.