Wilkinson Kate: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10212] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak in relation to Part 1 of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill. We have heard tonight several very very real concerns about the Sentencing Council and very very real concerns about the whole of Part 1 of this bill. If those concerns were taken with any seriousness then the sensible thing would have been to do as Mr Power’s amendment suggests—to split and divide the two parts so that we can actually have a decent debate on each and every separate part. 
We have heard concerns about the independence of the judiciary—how vital and crucial it is that we maintain that separation of powers and that we protect and maintain the independence of the judiciary. We have heard very very serious concerns about the appointment of the members of this Sentencing Council. Half of them can be politically appointed cronies—politically appointed by the Government of the day at the whim of the Government of the day—and that is not good for our political process. I draw the Committee’s attention to the provision in Mr Finlayson’s amendment in relation to the composition of the Sentencing Council which at least states that five members of the Sentencing Council who are not judges are to be appointed by the Chief Justice and not at the political whim of the Government of the day. 
We have heard concerns that the Sentencing Council—the scapegoat council—runs the risk of becoming the district health board of the justice sector to take the political heat off the Government of the day and to take the blame for the Government’s lack of policies in relation to the reduction of crime. The priority must be the safety of our citizens. It must be to prevent crime in the first place and not to put in place some bureaucratic politically appointed council to act as a scapegoat to act as a political tool and to hide the failure of this Government’s policies that are not addressing the problem of the increasing rate of crime. 
It is my pleasure to continue this major constitutional debate—it is major and it is important. It raises very very fundamental issues of judicial independence and I will just take a minute to refer to what the Minister said. He stated that the best way to support the judiciary is through this Sentencing Council. Well to me that is not logical. The judiciary does not want it; that is absolute rubbish. Why we need the Sentencing Council has not even been established and there is no link to show how it bests supports the judiciary. 
We have no problem with the need to have greater consistency in sentencing. We have no problem even with sentencing guidelines and we have fewer problems with a guidelines panel but the Sentencing Council model created by this bill is not the right model. At least the compromise suggested and proposed by Mr Finlayson may actually do some good if it were listened to by this Government of the day which is highly unlikely in the circumstances. We do not need a politically appointed Sentencing Council and we do not need another district health board model related to the justice sector. We do need to protect the fundamental principle of the separation of powers. 
Judges are there to interpret the law. They are not there to create the law; nor should they be. If judges interpret the law in a way that Parliament thinks does not reflect the intention of Parliament then Parliament can change the law. It is not up to the judges to do so. This is a direct fetter on judges’ discretion to decide within the parameters set by Parliament what is in the best interests of justice in the circumstances. The model of this Sentencing Council is not the way to do it. Half of the members of the Sentencing Council are politically appointed at the whim of the Government; half can be mere political cronies. Mr Finlayson’s Supplementary Order Paper deserves some merit. He does at least keep the Sentencing Council as a judicial role. He does have the same members in the composition of that council maybe but the five members who are not judges are appointed by a Chief Justice not by the political system of our country.