Dalziel Lianne: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4100. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I do want to reflect on one particular clause of the legislation the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. Perhaps I should preface my comments by making the point that none of the current members for Labour on the Justice and Electoral Committee were on the Justice and Electoral Committee when this legislation went through so we have not actually had the benefit of a discussion with officials over the intent of the particular part that I want to raise. I have also had a brief conversation with Denis O’Rourke who I know is going to be taking a call on the same matter because he has an amendment to this particular clause in relation to his Supplementary Order Paper 33 which promotes omitting new section 15A(2) in clause 10. 
The reason that I want to focus on new section 15A(2) is that I am not aware of the reason behind it. I think it would be incredibly useful if the Minister in the chair the Minister of Justice could give us a description as to why the legislation—which is being promoted for one particular purpose that has had some publicity in relation to the example that my colleague David Clark already provided—in this particular section requires that “The Registrar must excuse a person summoned to attend as a juror on an occasion from attending in any court on any occasion if satisfied on a written application for the purpose made by or on behalf of the person that the person is of or over the age of 65 years.” So that is a permanent excusing from serving on a jury and the only satisfaction of the criteria that is proposed by this clause is that the person is 65 years or older. 
Of course there has been a lot of discussion about how we have dealt with a somewhat ageist society and many changes that we have promoted in this House actually take away discrimination based on age. Having the age of 65 as a criteria on a stand-alone basis seems to me to offend the principles of all of the legislation that we have promoted in terms of human rights to remove age as the basis or as a delineating point for anything other than entitlement to for example superannuation as it still is in this country at the moment. 
 I think that it is worthy of some further discussion because when we had our representatives on the select committee that heard the evidence on this particular bill they felt that there was a concern about the age of 65 being used as a means. I will just quote from the report back from the select committee: “The Labour members are concerned that extending the Registrar’s power to grant permanent excusal solely because a person is 65 or over is at odds with progressive measures advanced over recent years to eliminate ageism and stereotypes and to promote participation.” Then it went on to say that the bill does not actually propose to reintroduce an age limit for jury service and that is the whole select committee commenting at that point. So Labour is simply saying that it is concerned about it looking like there is a bit of ageism creeping back into the law but saying: “No this is not a cut-off point”. 
Then the select committee actually talks about the fact that it does not consider—again this is the whole committee not the Labour members alone—that what is proposed implies that older people are less capable of serving on a jury. “On the contrary we consider that the life experience of older people is of significant value to society and we would encourage those who are able to do so to continue to undertake jury service.” Well I actually think that there is a little bit of a conflict in this and this is what I would like the Minister to debate. 
I think that on our side of the Chamber we should be supporting the amendment put forward by Denis O’Rourke. On the face of it it does look as if we are putting in place a particular provision that if it were taken up by everyone over the age of 65 I do not know how many juries would be able to be empanelled under those circumstances. I do not spend a lot of time down at the courts but on the odd time I have been there for a jury trial there would be more than one or two people over the age of 65 sitting on any one jury. 
 I think that the concept of just simply having somebody using age as the basis for a permanent excusal—and it does appear that it does not even require them to have ever served on a jury. So as long as you get to 65 and have never been called to give service on a jury just by notifying the fact that you are 65 and do not wish to be ever called you would never do what I consider to be a duty to the wider community in terms of serving on a jury. It does seem to me to not be in full accord really with the intent of the legislation as it was originally promoted. 
The original reason for promoting this legislation was the concern that had occurred in relation to a self-represented accused who had corresponded with persons on the jury panel whose names and addresses were on the jury list for his trial. I do not think anyone has got any objection to that particular part of the legislation; it is this other part that does not seem to be connected with that in any way shape or form. I know that it does not have to be for it to be legally within the scope of the legislation but it does seem to me to be taking advantage of a particular piece of legislation that is established for one purpose to in fact provide for another. 
I really cannot for the life of me understand why it is that age would be the threshold on its own despite the fact that the person may never have provided jury service in their entire lives. They may have not been called forward; they may have had a specific reason to be excused from jury service in a particular trial having had a conflict of interest or whatever. That person then just because they have become 65 years of age is able to write for a permanent excusal. That does not seem to make much sense to me but then as I say none of us actually sat on that select committee when the bill was referred to it. 
So even though it is a relatively small bill and we are supporting the passage of the bill it does seem to me that Denis O’Rourke has a very good motive in terms of promoting his Supplementary Order Paper. I will be interested to hear his comments obviously as the promoter of the particular amendment that would omit the relevant subsection. 
But I would also like to hear from the Minister in terms of how this particular provision came to be. I know that it was introduced under her predecessor the Hon Simon Power—yet another piece of legislation the Minister has had to pick up in that regard. But I am sure that she has read the background briefing papers to it and will understand and will be able to explain to the House why this particular provision is so important. And if it is not—if it is actually not that important and if it really does not need to proceed beyond here—then perhaps the Minister may be willing to consider Denis O’Rourke’s Supplementary Order Paper which would remove it from the legislation. I guess my last question would be what effect would that have—whether it would impact on any other elements of the legislation that are proposed and whether it would have such an effect. Perhaps the Minister could just simply explain that. I think that that would be very useful in terms of how we would vote on the Supplementary Order Paper to which I referred. 
Just in summary I think the Labour Opposition will be supporting the bill. We have had a rethink of the position that our committee members signalled when they sat on the select committee in light of the fact that Denis O’Rourke has put up a Supplementary Order Paper. He clearly was not a member of Parliament at the time that the bill was introduced so he has brought some fresh eyes to the subject as I think new members of the select committee have brought to the subject as well. I am certainly hoping that we can get to an understanding of why this particular provision was considered to be necessary by the previous Government and whether it is still considered necessary by the current Government.