Cosgrove Clayton: Succession (Homicide) Bill — First Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Succession (Homicide) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5568] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Succession (Homicide) Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Succession (Homicide) Bill be referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee for consideration. 
No one would dispute that it is repugnant to allow a person to benefit financially from his or her criminal activity. That concern is reflected in the general rule that killers cannot benefit from their victim’s estate. The Law Commission reviewed the operation of this judge-made rule in 1997 as part of a wider review of succession law. It recommended enacting legislation to codify and clarify the general rule for the following reasons. Firstly the general rule is well accepted but its application to individual cases can be uncertain. Those uncertainties are currently resolved through litigation on a case by case basis but can delay administration of the estate and be costly for modest estates. Secondly these cases are more common than one would like to think because a significant proportion of homicides occur in a domestic setting. Finally legislation would remove any doubts about whether a judge can as a matter of constitutional law properly override the statutory provisions concerning the distribution of estates of people who die without making a will. 
The bill will make it easier to administer estates and reduce the number and scope of disputes. I am grateful to the Law Commission once again for its assistance in preparing the Succession (Homicide) Bill for introduction. The bill was introduced into the House at the same time as the Wills Bill that we have just debated and as the Arbitration Amendment Bill which we are about to debate. These three bills give effect to useful reforms recommended by the Law Commission. They will improve the operation of existing law and make it easier to understand. I will now outline the key features of the Succession (Homicide) Bill. 
Simon Power 
: Just table it. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I know that the member is riveted by the legislation. The bill clearly defines when a killer will be prevented from benefiting from his or her victim’s death and how property should be disposed of in such cases. Administrators need to be able to readily ascertain whether an intended beneficiary is disinherited. So the bill clearly defines when an unlawful killing will prevent a killer from benefiting. Essentially a person who acting intentionally or recklessly unlawfully kills another person or an unborn child will be prevented from benefiting economically from that person’s death. Unlawful killings can arise in an infinite number of scenarios and society and the courts do not view all killings with equal condemnation. The following types of unlawful killing will therefore not trigger the bar on profiting: negligent killings; infanticide which is a diminished responsibility offence defined narrowly in the Crimes Act; killing another person pursuant to a suicide pact which is again narrowly defined in the Crimes Act; and assisted suicide which is narrowly defined in the bill itself. 
The Law Commission noted that sympathy might also be extended to abused partners who deliberately kill their abusers. Under the existing criminal law there is no defence of “battered woman syndrome” as such but it may be relevant to whether the person acted in self-defence. If the person did act in self-defence that person will not be guilty of murder or manslaughter. Ultimately the commission followed the status quo in the criminal law and did not recommend specifically excluding the battered person from the legislation. Therefore unless the battered person was acting in self-defence that person will be disinherited. However the same applies to the abuser. Abusers who acting intentionally or recklessly unlawfully kill their victims will also be disinherited. 
The bill prevents killers inheriting from their victim’s estate. However certain property interests do not fall into a person’s estate when that person dies. The bill calls these the “non-probate assets” and they include things like joint tenancies or certain trusts settled by the victim that he or she could have revoked while still alive and gifts made by the victim in contemplation of death. The bill also prevents the killer from receiving any of these. The property will be distributed as if the killer had died before the victim. So for example if the killer and victim own property as joint tenants the killer will lose his or her interest altogether. With joint tenancies two or more people jointly own property and when one dies their share automatically passes to the surviving joint tenant or tenants. It would be unfair for a killer to inherit the victim’s share in that way. So a person who kills a fellow joint tenant will be treated as dying before the victim and will forfeit his or her interest. However the bill otherwise generally recognises that a killer should not be deprived of pre-existing interests like a valid prior claim under the Property (Relationships) Act provided that those property interests should not be made any more valuable immediate or certain as a result of the unlawful killing. 
Finally a practical problem for administrators in these cases is establishing whether an intended beneficiary killed the deceased because under current law a criminal conviction is not conclusive evidence in civil proceedings of criminal responsibility for the victim’s death. The bill therefore provides that a conviction in New Zealand is conclusive evidence that a killer was in fact criminally responsible for the victim’s death for the purposes of these inheritance provisions. In some cases an alleged killer may not have been prosecuted in New Zealand at all. The death may have occurred overseas or the alleged killer may have subsequently died or become unfit to stand trial. The court will therefore be able to determine on the balance of probabilities whether if the person had been prosecuted here he or she would be guilty. The finding will impact on inheritance rights only; it will not result in a conviction or sentence. 
The bill which has been developed on the basis of the Law Commission’s recommendations provides welcome clarification of the law. It will allow estates to be administered more efficiently while still registering society’s objection to the possibility of criminals benefiting from their actions. I commend the bill to the House.