Locke Keith: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee 
Locke Keith: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14147] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Four of the Green MPs will be voting against the part of the bill that is to become the Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill. We do that because of its serious civil liberties implications. The bill was heavily criticised by the Attorney-General the Law Society several civil liberties groups and the Howard League for Penal Reform. A major concern is the new provision for the electronic monitoring of offenders and of those under extended supervision post-release. The Attorney-General said of the latter category that the provision “marks a significant departure from the standards of civil liberties in this country” and it contravenes the privacy and the search and seizure provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Other submitters argued it was against article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 
The move to enable the electronic monitoring of some parolees—it could be all parolees if the Minister’s amendment passes—is quite a step towards a surveillance State. It is a big departure from home detention monitoring which just ensures that a person stays at home. Electronic monitoring will enable the tracking of parolees and of those released under extended supervision everywhere they go using the Global Positioning System. The monitoring could even be extended later on to more categories of people including people on bail or people later put on extended supervision for other non-sex crimes. The Auckland Council for Civil Liberties called the bill a Trojan Horse in that respect pointing out for example that the requirement to give blood samples started off as applying to a narrow category but now includes people who are just suspects. It is not dreaming to think that such electronic monitoring once set in place could eventually be used against all kinds of offenders including political protesters whether they are offenders post-release or on parole or people on bail to keep them away from various institutions—be it an institution involved in GE the American Embassy a fur shop etc. Concern about tracking measures is not a new concern for the Green Party and Green MPs. During the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Bill we warned of the extent of the tracking powers granted to the police. 
The other provisions in the current bill that came in for serious criticism from the Attorney-General related to the double jeopardy elements involved in extended supervision which breach section 26(2) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—that one cannot be tried or punished again for one offence. That also applies with regard to a similar section section 14(7) of the international covenant I referred to previously. A second double jeopardy aspect that the law will retrospectively apply to those currently serving sentences was also strongly criticised by the Attorney-General in referring to section 26(2) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It also contravenes section 15(1) of the international covenant which forbids the later imposition of a heavier penalty than the one applying when an offence was committed. The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties objected to another ramification of that particular double jeopardy situation saying that it was a change from “a system based on conviction for past offences beyond reasonable doubt to one based on a form of effective detention justified by qualitative estimates of future dangerousness. It erects a shadow criminal law.” 
 That does not mean to say we are soft on child sex offenders. But there are ways of dealing with those problems—for example by taking up the submission of the Safe Network organisation that the Government and non-governmental organisations work much closer together to deal with sex offenders post-release. There is also a serious problem of serious child sex offenders serving their full term in jail and getting out without being monitored as they go into the community. So we are supportive of looking into some of the proposals made by the Law Society that there be a limited parole period built in at the time of sentencing or some provisions for those currently in jail to make sure that they have a parole period without the problems that this law imposes. 
The four of us who will be voting against this legislation have some very serious civil liberty concerns about it.