Chauvel Charles: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 31 July 2012. Volume:682;Page:4130. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 In the debate tonight we first of all dealt with the questions around Part 1 and as members on this side of the Chamber explained at the time there are good things in Part 1 of this bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill. It is appropriate that somebody seeking to become part of a jury panel who in the preceding 5 years has been sentenced to home detention for more than 3 months should probably not be part of a jury. Somebody who has other restrictions that are dealt with in the part that I am speaking to now should not be able to be part of a jury and because that is a sensible reform Labour members have decided that that part of the bill should have their support. 
What we cannot support though is the arbitrary extension of the discriminatory standard relating to jurors that has been traversed exhaustively in the debate about which Denis O’Rourke has put forward a Supplementary Order Paper whose history my colleague Lianne Dalziel traversed. She showed I think through a forensic examination of the various statutory provisions that that anachronistic provision dates back to the time that the House back in 1993 decided that the Human Rights Act should provide a general standard for our laws and that it should not just be the case that somebody should be deemed to be likely to be incompetent or less competent simply because they reach a certain age. 
I think a big disappointment for members on this side of the Chamber is that this was not an opportunity that was taken by the Government to bring the Juries Act into line with the rest of our laws which do not contain arbitrary standards around age. We had a very good contribution from my colleague David Parker who talked about the importance of keeping the jury pool representative because the purpose of jury trials is so that we can be assured that accused persons will be tried by a jury of their peers. He reminded the Committee that by 2027 there will be a million people in New Zealand over the age of 65. 
My father’s old law firm held the Crown warrant in Gisborne for years. I remember the Crown solicitor telling me how hard it was to get people to serve on a jury. We are abetting a public policy faux pas here by extending that entitlement or extending that problem by really saying that anybody over the age of 65—a million of our fellow New Zealanders by 2027—simply has a right not to participate to opt out of the jury system in situations where it is incredibly hard to fill a jury pool. Not only is that patronising to people over the age of 65; it is just stupid public policy. We do regret that the Committee did not see those arguments with favour. We do not think an arbitrary entitlement to exclude oneself from a jury just because one reaches a certain age is sensible public policy. In fact it deprives the court system of wisdom that it would I think well be able to use. 
We have our criticisms of Part 2 as well. I tried to set some of those out in my speech on that part. I am sorry if the Minister of Justice found any of it patronising; that was absolutely not my intention. I was glad that she did seek the advice of her officials and did respond. I think the problem is that the response was lacking. First of all she said there was no need to make the misuse of jury information an offence because a Law Commission report back in 2001 had said that there was not really any case for great reforms to the law relating to the information that could be discovered about jurors. 
Well of course the problem with that argument is that that was in 2001. The abuse of the system that occurred in the particular case that lead to this particular bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill occurred 9 years later in 2010 and was the reason that this bill was put forward. So it is not an answer to say: “Oh there was a Law Commission report 10 years ago that said there was not a case for change because there was no evidence of abuse of the jury system. Therefore the suggestion that it ought to be an offence to misuse jury information does not have any merit.” There is just no logic in that argument. 
I think that the other problem was with what the Minister said when she was on her feet before which was that some of these people are murderers so they would not really pay any attention to criminal sanctions around the misuse of jury information. That is a sad argument. It is basically telling the Committee: “Well we give up when it comes to particularly violent people. We will not try to subject them to the rule of law or to any particular sanction or penalty because we are just a bit scared that they might not pay any attention.” I actually thought better of the Minister and expected better from her. I never thought I would hear the argument that “Oh well they are murderers so they are too tough for the law under my supervision to deal with.” That was effectively what she told the Committee. 
The other problem with this legislation was again set out by my colleague Lianne Dalziel and that is the leisurely progress that the bill has had. We heard that the Law and Order Committee dealt with the issue with expedition between April and June in 2010. That was immediately following the misuse of the juror information by the litigant in person. The Minister of Justice at the time sprang into action and referred legislation to the select committee. The select committee processed it quickly heard evidence and reported back to the House. Then the legislation languished for 10 months or 12 months—however long it was—and nothing was done. And I am afraid that gives the lie to any claim that the Minister might make to be concerned at all about the safety of one of the most precious elements of our court system—that is the safety of jurors.