Borrows Chester: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Borrows Chester: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10004] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 What I find frustrating about this bill is that although parts of it have the ability to make some significant gains in some areas others detract from the history and some of the lawyers in the House would say the sanctity of our judicial system. 
National had to make a decision about what its priorities were in considering this in the light of the Labour members of the Justice and Electoral Committee being unwilling to allow a separation of the Sentencing Council provisions. National’s caucus intends to vote against the bill because of the constitutional conflicts that will be inflicted on our judicial system and the tier of Government that will come about from the creation of the Sentencing Council. Creating the Sentencing Council is an example of the Government not taking responsibility we believe. As my colleague Simon Power has said in the past it is making another “district health board” for the Government to hide behind. It removes from judges the ability to be creative and to address local or specific uniqueness as to offending that is happening within their area. 
I think of a local situation in Taranaki where two of our local judges have been innovative in creating a beast called a remand contract. What this means is that somebody who is appearing for sentencing and who is likely to go to jail because of some past offending or some trend in offending that has been continuing for some time signs a remand contract and goes and does something else in the meantime and that is related to attending some basic training in the army. Upon the person returning to the court having completed that basic training and providing a report and a completed certificate of the level of participation the judges if the report is satisfactory have been convicting and discharging. So the person who has attended a period of creative incarceration and has done some of what we would call hard labour and has mixed with some people with different values and aspirations has been given the opportunity to cut a different track. 
Such a creative response for what is generally a young person but in some cases is a slightly older person as an alternative to jail may well not be accounted for within the Sentencing Council’s recommendations. I feel that any move to constrict a judge’s ability to be creative and innovative with respective sentencing to address some local prevalence in offending is a detraction from the system we have now. 
The Government needs to explain how the Sentencing Council takes account of the place of Parliament in the hierarchical tier of the separation of powers between the Parliament at the top the executive in the middle and the judiciary at the bottom. If the Government says it has devolved or delegated the power to the Sentencing Council then it must explain clearly why such a serious step becomes a priority when there are certainly other priorities within the judicial system to be concerned about. The corrections portfolio is worthy of attention for sure. 
Another matter worthy of explanation is the effect that the lengthening of non-parole periods will have on the tariff of sentences. It has been made clear that in lengthening the non-parole period the overall sentences would have to come down. One example is that in the case of a person sentenced to an extended term of imprisonment on say a rape charge for which the maximum sentence has only relatively recently been extended from 14 years to 20 years the sentence would come back to 15 years. That is a reduction of the maximum sentence by 25 percent and that will reduce the tariff and even an upper-end sentence will have the offender eligible for parole after serving what is the minimum sentence at the moment. That seems completely ridiculous. 
The provision creating a new extended definition of a person under supervision has the ability to protract the victimisation of victims of crimes by requiring their attendance at hearings. It is good that the National Party and the Greens the balance of the committee were able to have this provision removed. 
At the Law and Order Committee we heard the terrible story of the mother of a victim of murder. The particular murder involved six offenders. Because of the provisions the Government created just a few years ago to reduce the non-parole period to a third and given the length of time the offender had spent in prison on remand that poor mother was attending parole applications within about 18 months of the trial and has continued to do so year after year. As this situation is multiplied by six offenders and as she feels a duty to her dead son it is effectively very cruel that she has to keep on appearing at those hearings yet it is a process she feels she has to complete. That forces her again to appear in person to make a claim against the compensation paid to a prisoner and that I think is difficult and unfair and the National Party agrees. Just as progress was being made towards recovery by way of a planned holiday or a family celebration the notification of yet another parole hearing would shove that recovery back further. So we are pleased that that provision is gone. 
The National Party will be voting against this bill because of the severity of terms around the Sentencing Council. National believes that the duty of deciding maximum penalties and giving instruction or a steer towards the judiciary is in fact the role of Parliament. That role should not be abrogated by creating a Sentencing Council. When sentences handed down appear to be insufficient and the public starts to protest that provision allows the Government to hide behind the Sentencing Council rather than take responsibility for the recommendations and guidelines created by that Sentencing Council. National believe we will see exactly the same situation we have seen in the health portfolio where the Government has held the outcome at arm’s length and hidden behind another body.