Jones Dail: Third Readings 
Jones Dail: Third Readings 
[Volume:617;Page:12938] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 The previous speaker for the Labour Party knows nothing at all about this legislation. The objection to it comes for example from the New Zealand Law Society which opposes the legislation’s proposal to establish the office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. It states that the legislation will undermine that most vital part of our constitution the independence of the judiciary. The Law Society takes the view that judicial independence which we need in this country will be undermined by this legislation. The previous speaker had nothing to say about that crucial point. 
In its submissions the Law Society also states that there is no need for legislation of this nature except in instances where a judge might be removed from office. Currently we in this Parliament have the right to remove a High Court judge from office and if we look back over our entire history to the British Westminster system we have had that right from around about 1700. We have had it at least since the establishment of constitutional government in New Zealand and of Parliament and the judiciary. It has worked very well in all that time because no High Court judge has ever been removed from office yet we could have done so by a simple motion in this House if so required. 
No one has asked for this legislation which sets up a Judicial Conduct Commissioner who will inquire into complaints about judicial behaviour. That is not just judicial behaviour in the court but also judicial behaviour in the judge’s private life. If a judge goes to a party allegedly misbehaves and someone gets grumpy about it that person can write to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and complain. It is hard enough to get judges today as it is because judges work to a code of trying to keep their private lives as well behaved as possible. They have to be like Caesar’s wife—totally above suspicion. Their standard of behaviour has to be more than immaculate. 
Now when anybody can complain about what judges might do in their private lives they will have to go through all the problems associated with a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. The commissioner will look at the complaint and then it will go to a Judicial Conduct Panel which will also have a crack at it. During the Committee stage we worked out that about nine steps would be involved as a result of this legislation. In the past there was just one. If that person was not satisfactory this House could dismiss that person—which has never happened. 
If it has never happened why do we need it now? No one has asked for it to happen now. I suspect it is part of the Labour Party’s overall plan to change the way of life in New Zealand. We have seen it remove the right of appeal to the Privy Council. We have seen it wanting to remove the title “Queen’s Counsel”. We saw it try to introduce what is called a “public domain” although how one can have a public domain on the wet bits the foreshore and seabed—given that the public domain was nearly always land-based and in the middle of the village—is absolutely beyond me. 
After all King Canute proved over a thousand years ago that one cannot stop the tide coming in yet the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark wanted to have public domain over the foreshore and seabed. The old public domain was in the middle of the village—on the hard dry bits. How on earth could she ever have dreamt of having a public domain on the foreshore and seabed? That was out of date a thousand years ago. King Canute proved it at that stage but that is part of the Labour Party’s policy of doing things—apart from its social policy of course with things like the Civil Union Bill. 
But getting back to this legislation one might say about the New Zealand Law Society complaints: “So what? They are just a bunch of lawyers.” The fact is that the Law Society very rarely comes out with a policy decision on legislation but on this occasion it did. When we go to the other extreme what about the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties? What was its view on the legislation? Now one might say that lawyers tend to be more conservative and the Council for Civil Liberties on the slightly more radical side of the spectrum. But the Council for Civil Liberties also opposed this bill terming it “an unnecessary complication to Parliament’s current right to impeach a judge.” That is the other end of the spectrum so what real support is there for this legislation? 
Once upon a time we might have had the Labour Party jumping up and down and supporting anything coming from the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties. We know that those days have gone and in the Committee stage the senior Government whip confirmed that that was the case. One might have thought that today it is the Greens who support the view of the Council for Civil Liberties. The Greens are forever jumping up and down and saying how we must protect individuals’ rights. We have had speeches about Mr Zaoui being locked up and anti-American speeches and all that sort of thing so one would have thought that the Greens would support the Council for Civil Liberties on this occasion. But no they do not. 
Just as the Greens supported the Labour Party in putting the Supreme Court legislation through and abolishing the right of appeal to the Privy Council so the Green Party is the only party—if we count the Progressive Coalition as a party at all—that is ending that 300-year-old right to impeach a judge. That right could be exercised by various citizens and British subjects given that Westminster was the mother of this Parliament when it passed the 1852 New Zealand Constitution Act. It is the Green Party that is ending the right of this Parliament to impeach a judge. The Green members are saying that they do not have faith in their own ability to decide whether a judge is doing the job properly and they want to hand it over to some other person appointed by a member of Parliament. 
What we are now seeing is that two major bodies—the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties and the New Zealand Law Society do not support this legislation. What will happen is that in place of us deciding if a High Court judge should be impeached a person appointed by a member of Parliament will set up a committee of less efficient people—people of a lesser standing—who will then decide on the future of the judiciary of New Zealand. That is a lowering of standards as I see it. We will have some fairly secretive body deciding the future of the judiciary in New Zealand. 
Mr Cunliffe can laugh but this Judicial Conduct Commissioner will be working to decide whether or not these people in the judiciary will be removed from their positions. As I said during the Committee stage and as the National Party person speaking today said it is an absolute constitutional outrage. 
Of course we are used to constitutional outrages on the part of this Labour Party. It is becoming second nature to us to see the way in which the Labour Party is ruining New Zealand’s judicial system. It cannot run the police force—we know how that is falling apart. We have seen how it is harder and harder to get High Court judges of the best possible calibre. Today we are introducing a system whereby judges of every kind will be subjected to so much scrutiny that one wonders whether anyone will really want to become a judge today. What is it worth to give up one’s private life absolutely and totally as a result of this bill should one want to become a judge? 
The Council for Civil Liberties went on to say that: “International norms have not been conformed with this bill such as the ICCPR. The bill provides merely for removal of judges not for judicial discipline.” That is the other interesting point—there is no provision for judicial discipline just for removal. “The removal provisions are subject to the absolute discretion of the Attorney-General of the day.” One member of Parliament not all of us will have that decision. The comment from the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties was: “There is no provision for complaint removal of any of the heads of bench.” 
It is not surprising therefore that New Zealand First opposes this legislation. We want to put New Zealand first and make sure that our traditions and conventions are maintained and that the New Zealand Parliament—all of us not just the Attorney-General—have the right to decide on the impeachment of a judge. Of course today the Attorney-General is not even a constituency MP. Today the Attorney-General is a list MP as I am and I think it is absolutely wrong that a list MP with no responsibility to any constituency can decide whether a judge stays or goes. That list MP the Attorney-General ought to be the one who goes and I am sure she will.