Bridges Simon: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bridges Simon: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 04 October 2011. Volume:676;Page:21649. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 It has been good to listen to speeches in the House on this legislation. I particularly enjoyed listening to my friend Kennedy Graham from the Green Party who gave us a learned exposition of many— 
Hon Member 
: Dissertation. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: —a dissertation of many theories of law. In particular he treated us to a view on John Rawls one of the 20th century’s greatest jurists and political philosophers and his theory of justice. But given that Kennedy Graham will be voting against this legislation I wonder whether he is none the less under what we would call a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. 
Be that as it may it is good to speak on this legislation. It is the result really of a consensus on criminal procedure from the Law Commission from the justice department and from various other bodies that the status quo could not stand. There have been for some time—and it has been getting worse—excessive delays costs and complexities within our justice system and particularly our jury trial system that need to be remedied. 
One point I want to make at the outset is that no one particular change in the legislation—although not all the changes are equal; some are much more significant than others—makes the difference. Really it is the total package viewed holistically I suppose that makes the difference and that will I am confident make great reductions to the delays the costs and the complexities that courts the victims of crime and the accused currently labour under. 
I talked in the second reading debate about the issues around the jury threshold and about this so-called—I think wrongly called—attack on the right to silence which is not in this legislation. I want to just— 
Hon John Boscawen 
: It’s been taken out Simon. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: That is what I said. That is why I said it is not in this legislation I say to Mr Boscawen. 
Today I want to talk about just a couple of other provisions that I think are pretty significant. Sentence indication hearings are contained within clauses 58 to 63 of the Criminal Procedure Bill. Effectively what we see in the bill which I hope will soon be law is a codification of existing practice. An accused—a defendant—can come to court and can ask for if you like a mock sentencing to see where they would be if they pleaded guilty. Some in the legal profession have been squeamish about this because in a sense it is having one’s cake and eating it too. It is saying to the outside world: “I am innocent of this; I am not guilty.” but on the inside because of the fact that the sentencing indication hearing is suppressed it is saying: “But I would like to just see because I am not very confident.” 
Nevertheless pragmatically speaking economically speaking and in terms of saving time I think we have a very good set of provisions here. Judges under clause 58 will be able to say the type of sentence; it may be home detention or imprisonment. They can go further than the existing practice by saying that they also think the sentence will be say 2 to 2½ years—giving the length and so on. Only defendants can request the sentence indication hearing which of course makes sense because it is for their benefit. 
I think another important provision is the fact that a court will need to have before it a minimum of information: the summary of facts previous convictions and victim impact statements. As has been the previous practice there will not necessarily be probation service reports and psychological and psychiatric reports. That may mean that a sentence indicated at a hearing may change somewhat at the real sentencing because on certain occasions those reports can make a difference. Nevertheless that is a very worthy part of this legislation. It is just a small part but it gives a flavour of what this legislation does. 
The other aspect of this legislation I wanted to highlight very briefly is the trial call-over memorandum that is now to be handed in by both prosecuting and defence counsel. That again is a codification of a practice that has been happening around much of the country. It also will save a lot of time. It makes it clear to both sides from the get-go what their positions are what witnesses they are calling what pre-trial applications they will be making and the like. That brings a lot of certainty and it will reduce the costs the complexities and the delays we have seen in criminal courts. That gives just a flavour of two small parts of very hefty legislation that Minister Power and the Justice and Electoral Committee should be rightly proud of.