Barker Rick: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Barker Rick: Courts and Criminal Matters Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:21668] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
:  
If I have not already moved the motion I move  
That the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill be now read a second time 
. This bill updates and improves a number of aspects of the law relating to the enforcement of fines and civil debts. It will significantly improve the Ministry of Justice’s capability to enforce unpaid fines. 
The Law and Order Committee has recommended a number of very worthwhile improvements to the bill and I would like to thank the members of the select committee for their contribution. In particular I would like to thank the very hard-working and excellent chair of the select committee Martin Gallagher who I know has put a tremendous amount of good work into this bill and has been somewhat frustrated by its process and I commend him for his tolerance. Further substantial changes to the law relating to fines enforcement result from a comprehensive review of the infringement and fines systems now being undertaken. 
This present bill largely relates to technical improvements to existing processes. There is however one very important new policy issue implemented by the bill which is to have enforcement of fines at airports. Currently most fines defaulters are able to leave New Zealand permanently or leave and re-enter the country without this being brought to the attention of the Ministry of Justice collections units. This situation is completely unacceptable and undermines the credibility of the fines sentence. Parts 2 4 and 6 of the bill therefore create an arrangement allowing the Ministry of Justice to compare its database of serious fines defaulters with the databases of the Customs Service and the Immigration Service of people travelling in or out of the country. This will enable alerts to be triggered when serious fines defaulters enter or leave New Zealand at an international airport. The serious fines defaulters will be intercepted at the airport and given the opportunity to pay their fine or they will be arrested. 
Restriction of airport interception for the most serious defaulters will minimise the potential to inconvenience other travellers. The definition of serious fines default given in clauses 7 and 15 was however amended by the select committee to include anyone who owes any amount of reparation in addition to anyone owing at least $1000 in unpaid fines. That change does not have a serious impact in terms of the volumes of persons likely to be intercepted but it means that nobody who is in default in payment of reparation to a victim of his or her offending will be able to leave the country undetected. I think that is a good amendment and I support it wholeheartedly. The bill also allows for the threshold in relation to fines to be reduced by Order in Council and the Government will review that threshold in the light of experience in the implementation of the legislation. 
Clauses 7 and 15 were amended by the Law and Order Committee to limit the exemption from liability afforded to the Crown in respect of fines enforcements action taken against the traveller. The committee was concerned that the provisions as originally drafted would suggest that an innocent person who was wrongly detained would not be entitled to recover loss and damages. The redrafted provisions exempt the Crown from liability only in relation to third parties such as airlines and other passengers and then only when the actions were taken in good faith and did not result from gross negligence. 
Other changes made by the select committee include those made to clause 26 which redrafts section 78B of the Summary Proceedings Act to clarify the range of situations in which irregularities and infringement proceedings can be corrected by the courts. This section is quite complex owing to the range of situations needing to be covered and the requirement to be fair to defendants whilst not affording undue opportunities to obstruct the infringement enforcement process on purely technical grounds. It was substantially expanded and reworded at the select committee stage and some additional clarifying amendments will be proposed in a Supplementary Order Paper. 
Clause 27 was also significantly expanded by the select committee. The original intention of this provision was to ensure that fines defaulters who are paying off fines or reparation by instalments and who experience a substantial financial windfall or who are found to have given misleading information when entering into a payment arrangement take responsibility for paying off the fines or reparation as soon as practicable. Currently a fines defaulter who is meeting agreed instalment payments cannot be required to increase them even if it comes to the ministry’s attention that his or her circumstances have improved dramatically. Clause 27 therefore enables a registrar to take the initiative to vary the amounts payable under agreement. New subsections (2) and (3) inserted by the select committee in response to submissions also empower a registrar to take steps to amend a time to pay or attachment order in order to take account of an additional fine. This will avoid the need for the person to enter into a completely new arrangement for a new fine. 
The select committee has also added a new amendment to section 88(3) of the Summary Proceedings Act. This relates to the use of charging orders against the property of fines defaulters. This is a civil enforcement mechanism that is not cost-effective unless the amount owed is relatively large. The committee concluded however that the current threshold in the Act for use of such orders is too high at $10000. The Government agrees that this should be reduced to $5000. A number of further minor technical amendments to the Summary Proceedings Act have been incorporated in the bill by the select committee. These include for example provisions to sections 88 and 91 of the Act to enable warrants for the arrest of fines defaulters or the seizure of their goods to be in the form of a computer printout. The Supplementary Order Paper will include technical improvements of this nature aimed at increasing efficiency of the enforcement proceedings.