Barker Rick: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
Barker Rick: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16606] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I will just pick up on a couple of points. I thank Dail Jones for his contribution. I reply to him simply that the chief executive he refers to will be the chief executive for the department which is the Ministry of Justice. He asks when this has been done in the past—well it is only about 2 years ago I think that we increased jury fees substantially. I guess it is time to look at the matter again. This legislation makes the system to do that much easier than it was previously. 
The second point I make to Mr Jones is that if someone is quite distressed about the level of fee reimbursement they get and they are suffering financial hardship as a consequence of their service they can apply to the registrar of the court who can make an individual decision about that. So there are ways of relieving the pressure. But I would pick up on the point that he has alluded to which is that being on a jury—being part of a panel of people who sit in judgment of one of their fellow citizens—is in my opinion a very important part of citizenship. I think we sometimes need to remind the public of that—that if we want to have a justice system and to be tried and made judgment on by our peers then we have to make a contribution to that as well. We should see it not as an onerous burden but as a privilege of citizenship. The contribution by Richard Worth was as usual well made. He traversed the world as he is wont to do giving out the list of facts and figures on who has what— 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: And the whole of his lifetime back to Henry VIII. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: —and as usual delved into history. I am surprised he has only gone back as far as Henry VIII on this particular occasion. But Mr Worth makes the point very plain that many other jurisdictions have moved to a majority of 10 for and two opposed. We have taken a more conservative approach—11:1—which I think says that we are being cautious in this regard. I support that. 
Kate Wilkinson made the observation that we could go down to 10:2 and asked why we did not make changes in that area. I refer her to page 24 of the commentary on the bill which states: “New section 22A does not permit juries of fewer than 10 except with the consent of both parties.” That is a sensible thing. It continues: “We considered specifying that a majority verdict should be permitted only if there are 12 jurors but decided against it. If defence counsel has concerns in any particular case about a verdict from a majority of fewer than 9 out of 10 they can choose not to consent to the trial’s proceeding.” So the decision rests with the defence in that particular case. 
The last observation I make is that the Criminal Procedure Bill is a bill that I think members generally agree is full of many good points. The debate shows the constructive discussion we have had and the constructive discussion we have had about significant reform and I welcome that. Just to recap I note that this particular legislation will do quite a lot for our juries in New Zealand. It will extend the jury districts from 30 to 45 kilometres from the courthouse. It will update the list of persons who do not have to serve or cannot serve. It will make the penalties for not serving go up so there is a bit of carrot and stick in here. It changes the rules around challenging juries and there are many other changes. This is a significant package of reform which I think will improve the jury system quite significantly. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 97 in the name of the Hon Rick Barker to Part 4 be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
Part 4 as amended agreed to.