Finlayson Christopher: Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Finlayson Christopher: Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:632;Page:4102] 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (National) 
: 
 As Dr Worth said on Tuesday night the National Party supports the first reading of this legislation. I cannot help start my first reading speech by observing that it is incredible to think that in the 1980s the then Labour Government had an outstanding trial lawyer as Prime Minister in David Lange; a distinguished ex - law professor as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice—and that was brought home to me today when Sir Geoffrey Palmer was speaking before the Justice and Electoral Committee in his capacity of chairman of the Legislation Advisory Committee—and lawyers like Bill Jeffries David Caygill and Richard Prebble in key portfolios yet today Labour can provide only people of the calibre of Clayton Cosgrove to be Associate Minister of Justice. I really enjoy working with Russell Fairbrother on the Justice and Electoral Committee and I cannot understand why he is not the Minister of Justice especially given the performance of the Minister in the House today during question time. With those preliminary comments I now pass on to debate the bill. 
I begin by paying tribute to justices of the peace and the work they do. As Dr Worth said—as befits a person of his scholarship—the job of justice of the peace is “an ancient and honourable job”. Indeed my research has indicated that it goes back to a statute of Edward III in 1327 which provided—and I ask the woman MPs of the House to excuse the sexist language—that “good men and lawful shall be assigned to keep the peace”. As that great National Attorney-General John Marshall said on 5 July 1957 when introducing the second reading of the Justices of the Peace Bill—and I quote from  
Hansard 
 Volume 311 at page 639—“The office of justice of the peace is an ancient and an honourable one. The extent and importance of the functions of the office have varied from time to time but for six centuries of British history Justices of the Peace have been an established feature of the British way of life and an element in the administration of justice.” A little further on he says: “The system of appointing Justices of the Peace came to New Zealand with the first colonists as part of the law of England.” 
The work of a JP is varied and very important and I can identify at least three major tasks: first the routine administrative tasks performed every day by JPs often at the most inconvenient times; second the tasks sometimes performed by JPs under the now repealed Coroners Act of 1988—we are now working towards a regime of full-time coroners but the work of JPs in this area is to be praised and acknowledged—and third judicial functions such as hearing depositions dealing with miscellaneous court matters like careless driving charges and helping District Court judges with bail applications and adjournments quite often on Saturdays and public holidays. So justices of the peace play a very important role in New Zealand’s criminal and sometimes civil justice systems and generously give of their time. 
As is well known the bill has three main provisions. The first is it requires all newly appointed justices of the peace to undertake training before taking their oath of office. For some reason the training that is proposed relates only to the administrative functions undertaken by justices of the peace rather than also relating to the judicial functions. I would have thought that was rather strange because if ever there was an area where training was needed it would be the performance of judicial functions. The second is that the bill introduces a new disciplinary regime to enable a justice of the peace to be removed or suspended from office or subject to lesser disciplinary action in less serious cases. The third is to permit the designation of “JP (retired)” for JPs who have held office for a period of over 10 years. 
As can be seen the bill deals with three matters of varying degrees of importance but it does not deal with some issues that I would have thought it could deal with. The first relates to qualification for appointment. I think there is an argument to be made that the vetting of applications could be much stricter. The second aspect and it is linked to the issue of the education of JPs is that of continuing education. In the various professions these days for example there is a requirement for professionals to receive continuing legal education or continuing medical education. I cannot see why the bill cannot provide for that and maybe the select committee could consider that matter. The third aspect that I think could be looked at given the fact that justices of the peace are by and large a very sensible and professional lot who contribute a lot to the community is the jurisdiction of judicial justices of the peace. I would like to see it increased so that for example they can deal with such matters as imposing a fine of say up to $7500 or imposing terms of imprisonment. I think justices of the peace could play a role in respect of diversion. I certainly think they could play a role in respect of restorative justice. 
It is extraordinary that a bill that deals with only three matters is rather long and complex legislation. To my way of thinking although of course National members do not oppose it going to a select committee it somehow misses the plot in that it fails to deal with a number of important matters. I took a good look at the Justices of the Peace Act of 1957. That Act is very simple legislation made up of 10 sections. It deals with the appointment of justices their functions and powers their attendance at court and other such matters. In the 1950s the lawmakers managed to express themselves reasonably succinctly in 10 sections yet the bill before the House which amends the substantive legislation is longer than the Act itself. 
Colin King 
: That tells us something. 
CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON 
: It does tell us something. For the benefit of Mr King it tells us something about wordiness of expression and sometimes over-prescription. It exemplifies an unfortunate trend in legislative drafting towards making complicated and complex that which need not necessarily be so. I am sure this bill could be made more succinct. I think it was Mark Twain who said: “I apologise. I didn’t have time to write a short letter. I had to write a long one.” A similar sort of thing could be said about legislative drafting but if we knuckle down and put a bit of time and effort into it we can end up with something that is more succinct than this rather wordy effort. 
But with those preliminary comments in mind National does not oppose the first reading. I think the bill should go to a select committee. Further work needs to be done on it and during the course of the Committee stage some of those other areas that I referred to can be incorporated into the bill. I do not think that would undermine the general thrust of the bill and it would make for better legislation.