Collins Judith: Criminal Procedure Bill — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Criminal Procedure Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:14223] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 The National Party will support this bill through to the select committee. However we understand that the Government wants to send it to the Law and Order Committee—am I right Minister?—rather than to the Justice and Electoral Committee. We are a bit concerned about that because we believe it should go to the Justice and Electoral Committee. This is an issue of juries and judges. It is absolutely appropriate that the bill go to that committee rather than to the Law and Order Committee which deals with police issues and things like that. The choice of committee is wrong. 
I have an idea how we can get time in the Justice and Electoral Committee to deal with this bill: we will swap this bill for the Civil Union Bill because if it is appropriate to send the Criminal Procedure Bill through to the Law and Order Committee then I am sure it is just as appropriate to send it the Civil Union Bill. I can hear “Hear hear!” all around from members of the select committee—except for Mr Barnett. 
Mr Worth has very correctly pointed out that we are quite supportive of having majority verdicts in jury trials. We are concerned to make sure that people do not nobble juries—that juries do not have a rogue element that will not be convinced either way and simply not look at the issues. But I am confidently assured by many of the people who practise in the criminal law area—as lawyers hopefully not as criminals—that the ability of juries to look through all the gloss the spin and everything else and at the substance of what they are hearing is often underrated. 
I think that we in New Zealand perhaps underrate juries significantly and to our peril. In most cases people come to juries wondering what they will find and what will come from the experience. They are very concerned to do the right thing. I have been told by those who are involved in this area that juries invariably come to the right decision and that they take their roles very seriously. 
I note the comment made by the Green Party member who said he had two examples of when he could have been on juries but that examinations and his coming into Parliament unfortunately prevented him from doing so. I think that jury service must be very much like a conscience issue in Parliament where everyone is trying to do the right thing according to what they think is right and not according to any party line. We do underestimate the role of juries and their abilities in most cases to come to a verdict. 
Mr Worth pointed out that there has been a substantial increase in the number of hung juries and that is perhaps something to do with the fact that police resourcing is not as good as it should be that there is a genuine concern that the police are not always producing the right standard of forensic work and that there is some sort of concern in the community that the police are not as highly valued and viewed as they once were. There has been a general downgrading of police morale and perhaps that can be seen in what happens with these verdicts. 
We understand that there is a concern over gang-related crime. I can recall at least one crime that occurred in Taranaki where a person literally got away with murder because of intimidation of witnesses and a jury. Of course that one instance does not mean to say that this happens all the time so therefore we need to tread very very carefully with that issue. 
We are concerned about the double-jeopardy provisions in the bill as Mr Worth said. We are particularly concerned with the second exception. In relation to the second exception the explanatory note states:“… compelling new evidence. It will apply to persons previously acquitted of very serious criminal offences if reliable evidence is subsequently discovered that was not available at the time of the first trial and indicates with a high degree of probability that the person is in fact guilty.” That says to me that if anyone is prosecuted using this exception any jury or judge will know from the start of the prosecution that there is reliable evidence and a judgment has already been made that the evidence is reliable which is a judgment that is best made by the jury. So that judgment is being taken away from the jury. 
The second thing is the fact that the bill states: “… indicates with a high degree of probability that the person is in fact guilty.” So a judgment is already being made before the jury gets to look at it. The jury is placed in the position of looking at this instance and saying: “If I don’t think this person is guilty clearly I am wrong.” I can see this as a State-sanctioned form of jury tampering—in fact a bullying of the jury into not going with its own reactions and feelings on what it is seeing. For instance if jury members see a prosecution witness giving evidence and in their opinion the person is telling a barefaced lie under this sort of provision people would be saying to themselves: “Perhaps I’ve got it wrong. Perhaps that person is not telling a barefaced lie. Perhaps the body language does not indicate that.” when the jury member should rightly be going with his or her own feelings on the matter. 
Another comment in the explanatory note states: “The basis for the compelling new evidence exception is the importance in the interests of justice (and particularly victims’ interests) of achieving factually correct verdicts in very serious cases...”. Those of us who have been around the legal profession for a long time know that there are at least as many sides to a story as there are people to tell it. What is a fact is very much a subjective matter because it depends very much on how someone sees it. We have consistently shown over the years that the evidence of people identifying someone from a particular crime scene or saying: “I know that that was the person. I saw him or her” is incredibly unreliable. After a period of time most people do not remember quite what they think they saw and that is something we need to be very careful about. That is where DNA testing has been able to really improve the situation. 
In essence I am pleased to be able to support this bill through to a select committee. I make a last-minute plea to have this bill transferred to the Justice and Electoral Committee—in my opinion the appropriate committee to examine this bill—and that the issues the National Party has raised are taken into account in a serious way.