Locke Keith: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6615] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 Following on from Richard Worth’s arguments I think it is important that we have an absolute principle against any endorsement of torture. That principle—that cruel and degrading punishment is simply not allowed—is contained in the optional protocol and in the international convention itself that the protocol was added to. 
The ticking bomb scenario can be given no credence in law in practice or anything else because if we start to justify torture in any sense whatsoever we become as bad as the terrorists or whoever the bad people are whom we are fighting: we have lowered the standard of treatment we have reduced the humanity in the processes of the State and we have become in effect like the people we are claiming to fight. 
In practical terms the ticking bomb scenario falls down because we could always argue the case of the ticking bomb in order to engage in torture then say that oh the bomb was not ticking but we thought it was. We could imagine that scenario particularly in the many countries that this protocol is directed at—countries where there is systematic torture by the State. We need just to read the Amnesty International reports to see that to leave any chink in the international legal armour allows dozens of countries to engage in torture because they say they are dealing with a ticking bomb scenario. It is not the road to follow at all. 
Part 2 amends several Acts including the Ombudsmen Act and the Crimes of Torture Act 1989 and my amendments were directed to adding more clarity. For example rather than leaving it up to the Minister to appoint the national preventive mechanisms in terms of the inspection of New Zealand’s places of detention of all types that process has to be independent of the State. That is contained in the Paris principles. It is clear that if the executive is left with the power to appoint an inspection mechanism in many countries that means there is not proper independent inspection. We have to set a model in the international arena in that regard which is why my amendments said that Parliament should do that. 
My amendment to clause 16 meant that this legislation would list the national preventive mechanisms: the Ombudsmen the Police Complaints Authority the Human Rights Commission the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Judge Advocate General. They would be specified in legislation and the central national preventive mechanism would be the Human Rights Commission which although it is not in the bill at present everyone says would be the central national preventive mechanism reporting to the subcommittee of the United Nations Committee against Torture. 
People raised practical arguments. They said it would be a pain to change legislatively the national preventive mechanism if for example the Police Complaints Authority evolved into an Independent Police Complaints Authority or something different—and we do have a discussion of an Independent Police Complaints Authority on the Order Paper at the moment. To me it would be easy if there were a change to the Police Complaints Authority just to have a provision like those in Part 2 amending the Crimes of Torture Act so that the nature of the national preventive mechanism designated to cover the police could be changed by a simple amendment in the new legislation. 
I do not think that practically there is any problem with abiding by the idea that Parliament should determine these inspection mechanisms and that the executive should be out of the picture. There is a reporting procedure to the Minister. It is good that the bill states that national preventive mechanism reports must be tabled in Parliament and made public immediately so there is an open reporting procedure. That accords with the international principles for inspection mechanisms. But I am quite disappointed that in spite of all the submissions to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee about these inspection mechanisms having complete independence from the executive Parliament has not gone along with my amendments. It would be very straightforward to do so. Thank you.