Franks Stephen: Judicial Matters Bill — First Reading 
Franks Stephen: Judicial Matters Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:611;Page:8311] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 The ACT party will vote on this bill in the same way as the United Future party will—against it even at its introduction. But we would be less likely to vote that way if the Associate Minister of Justice Margaret Wilson had not introduced it with a reference motion that would suspend or avoid the operation of the Standing Orders in order to have the bill rammed through the select committee process together with or almost at the same time as the Supreme Court Bill essentially as a decoy action. What the introduction of this bill at this time does is simply enable members of this House who do not want to face the reality of what the Supreme Court Bill is doing to postpone and put off to the consideration of this bill matters that really should be dealt with before the Supreme Court Bill passes. 
So this Judicial Matters Bill is a very empty bill. It is a bill that should be rejected out of hand because it does not do a fraction of what even Labour said it wanted to do about judicial appointments. It is simply a device to enable the Government to persuade the more weak-minded members in this House that they are not avoiding their duty in postponing to a bill such as this things that are critical to the establishment of a new Supreme Court—if that is to be rammed through. 
All that this bill really does is appoint a judicial discipliner—as the Green member has just said someone he expects to manage the judiciary. Does that phrase not send shudders down the spines of those of us who know anything about the constitution? The Green member said he welcomed this bill for the better management of the judiciary. That is what this bill is to do—put the judiciary under the thumb of someone appointed at the absolute discretion of the Attorney-General. This bill says it is on the motion of the House of Representatives but of course it does not have in it anything simple to ensure cross-party support such as the words “with the approval of the Leader of the Opposition” or perhaps “with the approval of leaders of parties representing 66 percent”—or 75 percent—“of the members of the House”. No this bill is simply a provision for the Attorney-General to appoint a person congenial to her to ensure the judges are politically correct. 
When we see the criteria for considering complaints and the duty on the Judicial Conduct Commissioner to consider the complaints we can see that there has been no desire to constrain them. The commissioner must consider the complaints. Even if the commissioner concludes that they are about matters that could not result in removal they must still be considered and go through this process. I believe that the Attorney-General thinks that will be highly educative for the judges. In other words it is to ensure that the judges feel the heavy hot breath of the regulator over their shoulders. 
Richard Worth 
: The heavy hot breath of the Attorney-General. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The heavy hot breath of the Attorney-General as Mr Worth says. The Judicial Conduct Commissioner would be free to look into complaints about the dress sense of a judge the religion of a judge perhaps the sexual preferences of a judge or perhaps the lack of obsequiousness of a judge. Perhaps he or she will look into the failure of a judge to attend the brainwashing sessions that the judges now have to attend where they all sit in ritual obeisance listening to imported harridans telling them how beastly they are to women or to other minorities whom the Government wants to favour. Any of those things could be considered by the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and would have to go through the motions that would allow the commissioner to form an opinion whether the complaint if substantiated could warrant consideration of the removal of the judge from office. 
But there is nothing in this bill that tells us what a judge can be removed for. There is nothing here that gets over the fact that a former Minister of Justice the Rt Hon Doug Graham did not have the courage to get rid of judges who had patently trashed the reputation of the judiciary in this country. The Rt Hon Doug Graham left those judges in position and would not bring a motion to the House and this bill does not do anything about that. This bill says that the Judicial Conduct Commissioner will report to the Attorney-General and the Attorney-General then will face exactly the same pressures that the Rt Hon Doug Graham could not face. We still do not know whether there will be a motion before the House. We do not even know whether the House can in effect take its own motion; whether this bill protects the traditional sanction by those “elected of the people” against a judge. Those who are able to be ejected by the votes of the people deciding that a judge has broken the required standards and perhaps get rid of him or her should decide without the Judicial Conduct Panel’s recommendation. 
When we look at clause 33 we see it is entirely opaque. The Attorney-General has a discretion to act on the recommendation of the panel but not an obligation to do so—it is an absolute discretion. Then there is a further constraint in that the judge must not be removed on the ground of a finding made by the Judicial Conduct Panel unless the panel has reported to the Attorney-General that it justifies consideration. In effect this bill gives an absolute discretion to the Attorney-General as to whether he or she will act on the conduct panel’s motion and appears to leave no room for Parliament to decide to act even if the conduct panel looks like a bunch of cronies and even if the conduct panel looks as if it has allowed familiarity or undue concern for the sensitivities of the Government to result in a recommendation that there has been conduct that could justify removal but the conduct panel does not think there should be removal. In other words the conduct panel appears to have been set up to snooker Parliament to snooker the possibility of Parliament taking this out of the hands of an Attorney-General who is colluding with the judiciary; it makes sure that Parliament could not do that. This bill confirms the power of the Attorney-General and the Government in power over the judiciary instead of providing a buttress or protections against interference. 
This bill does trifling things but it does them in a way that opens it up for them to be extremely significant. As has already been said this does not deal with the real concern of New Zealanders that we are about to see a Government attempting to set up an entire top court to give it a quasi-constitutional role— 
Debate interrupted.