Clendon David: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clendon David: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4440. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora koutou. The point has been made already that habeas corpus is one of those fundamental precepts of our constitutional system of our rule of law. The Greens will be content to support this amendment to the core Act the legislation. It is interesting that the 2001 Habeas Corpus Act is itself derived from a 1997 report of the Law Commission which at that time saw fit to look at the existing situation then found that it was not as good as it could be and sought to make it better. In 2007—some 10 or so years later—the then Minister of Justice invited the Law Commission to once again have a look at the operation of this legislation and the result of course is the proposed amendment that we are debating or beginning to debate tonight. I think it is worth noting that that is an entirely appropriate process and it is useful to have that substantial piece of work already done which should ease the task of the select committee. 
I would have to echo Mr Chauvel’s comments about the appropriateness of how this is coming to the House however. We know that of course every member of this House has every right to put a bill into the ballot and every day that the ballot is drawn there is an intake of breath as we hope we will be the lucky ones. I was interested to read  
McGee 
 and of course that reinforces the point that any member may put in a member’s bill but the inference is clear that the expectation is that this is something a tool a mechanism that the Government will use lightly. The question must be asked why has this fairly pragmatic technical amendment to an existing Act not been included in some form of omnibus bill or included in another justice bill? It is a peculiar tactic and it is interesting that a particular journalist some weeks ago was moved to speculate on perhaps the motivation behind these members’ bills we are seeing from the Government that are popping up. I do think Mr Chauvel might have traversed that territory very well and come to the right conclusion. 
The principle behind habeas corpus in this particular bill the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill clearly is not put at any risk. I was interested to hear Mr Little’s remarks but generally speaking the notion of habeas corpus—the right of a person to be brought before their accusers to be able to speak in defence of their actions or whatever it might be—is fairly well protected. We ought never to take it for granted. We have seen the ongoing indefensible abuse of the principle of habeas corpus in the United States over many years in the ongoing stain on the American reputation that is Guantanamo Bay—the detention of people without trial without access to legal information and in some cases without even being properly identified. One hopes we never see a stain on New Zealand’s reputation but I think it is an apt reminder that we ought never to take these things for granted to continue to value these fundamentals of our legal system and to be thoughtful about any amendments any changes we make to them. 
As I say I am sure this bill is coming from a very sound and a very straightforward foundation. I did note initially with a minor concern that there is a clause in this bill that enables the use of audiovisual technology. I am a person I must say who immediately hears a wee alarm bell going when we introduce technology into the practice and the execution of justice. In this instance however it is clear that the judge may initiate the use of an audiovisual link for example but I do note that the test that the judge must be convinced of is that it is in the interests of justice before he or she determines the use of such a technology. I think that is an interesting test. It is perhaps a useful conversation for the select committee to have just to think through exactly what that would mean in the real world in the application of this bill. So with those few comments I do reiterate that the Greens will be supporting this bill. We have our suspicions and questions about the mechanism used to bring it into the House but that will not prevent us from supporting what we see as a useful piece of legislation.