Bridges Simon: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — First Reading 
Bridges Simon: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:669;Page:15757] 
SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 It is very good to speak on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill and to note some of the things that the member Charles Chauvel has said. I did not hear all of his contribution to this first reading. He made some very sensible contributions. It was good to hear that Labour will be withholding its final position on a number of things. I agree entirely with the member that given the detail we have in this bill and the myriad things it is doing in our criminal procedure arena we will as a select committee have to be very careful very measured and go through the detail with the seriousness it deserves. But I cannot accept what the member says when he calls this bill “piecemeal”. I confess that I have not read all 525 pages yet but what is very very clear to me— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: What a lazy member. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I assure the member that I will read it very soon but it is a big bill. What I am very clear on just from what I have read and the summaries I have read is that it will bring a smarter more efficient criminal justice procedure. Charles Chauvel is not right when he calls this piecemeal. It is also delivering on a huge raft of measures that criminal lawyers have been asking for for some time. For example—and I know judges have been calling for this for some time—it includes a measure whereby defence counsel narrow in on the issues they want to argue in a case rather than a sort of scattergun approach. That is merely one example. 
However because it is such a large body of work I want to focus on one particular area and that is the issue that Charles Chauvel has mentioned whereby we are ensuring that trial procedures are appropriate to the nature and seriousness of the alleged offence and where we are raising the threshold for jury trial from 3 months’ maximum imprisonment term to 3 years. I entirely agree with that. Of course there are two kinds of hearings in the criminal system. There is a hearing before a judge then we have trials that can be “judge alone” or by jury. Effectively I am talking about jury trials. An accused or a defendant has had the right to elect trial by jury—and I am simplifying because there are a small number of exceptions—effectively from when there is a maximum 3-months’ imprisonment term. 
I say and I say this from an ex-practitioner’s point of view—and I am sure there are many theoretical reasons as well why this is right—that the 3-month maximum is far too low. It is at these minor trials that go to jury where a young prosecutor learns his or her craft. In my experience juries would often decide that the Crown was wasting its time bringing these dare I say it rats and mice cases to the jury. I can think of one particular case—it was a day-and-a-half jury trial involving the theft of a $300 piece of equipment. Excess breath-alcohol cases can go to jury trial as can assault cases. The case of a male assaulting a female can be—and I do not want to be glib about this—significant to the people involved but technically be an exceptionally simple case to prove. The intentional application of force generally comes down to just two things—did it happen and did he or she mean it. As I say juries sometimes think the Crown is wasting their time that it is using the jury trial as a hammer to crack a nut in the case of an often minor offence. As I say because of that quite often in these smaller cases juries acquit because like me they think jury trials should be used for serious cases where there is a real jeopardy to the accused not the rats and mice stuff. 
On that score alone this bill is significant. It actually does dozens more things than that as I see it but on this count alone there will be 1000 to 1400 fewer designated jury trials per annum. The officials tell us that that means there will be 300 to 600 fewer actual jury trials a year. That will mean huge savings in time and resources for our courts as they do not need to go through the basics when they have a judge alone. They do not need to tell the jury the absolute basics. In fact generally there will not need to be submissions on the facts because the judge can take cognisance of them for himself; he does not need submissions. So that is a much quicker process. It does not mean less justice; it just means more efficiency less delay less cost and I suppose—to coin a phrase that another great Minister has used—better sooner more convenient justice.