Chauvel Charles: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10563] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I want to make two contributions in response to matters already raised by other members in this Committee stage. [ 
Interruption 
] I am glad that Dr Mapp is so keen to hear those contributions. It is always good to have an appreciative audience. The first comment I want to make relates to the matter raised by Mr Finlayson as to the additional protections inserted by the Justice and Electoral Committee in Subpart 3 which relates to the provisions concerning secret witnesses—so-called—before Parole Board hearings. The situation as the member set out is that we have sought to enhance the due process protections that exist when this scenario arises—that is when an application is made for evidence effectively to be heard in a manner that will not be disclosed to the person applying for parole. 
It will be recalled that Mr Finlayson spoke of the protection inserted whereby the select committee felt it was appropriate to require the grounds for making an application of this nature to be set out in an affidavit on oath or by affirmation by the statutory officer applying for the order. So it will be necessary for that person to depose as to the reasons why this extraordinary breach of the normal principle—that a person should know the evidence against him or her—should occur. 
The other protection which I do not think Mr Finlayson mentioned but which is worthy of recording is that we have set out in the committee report and in the bill that these powers ought not to be delegable. It is a departure from the usual rule in the laws relating to the State sector that a chief executive may delegate functions to his or her employees. In this case the power must be exercised only by the Commissioner of Police himself or herself or by the Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections. Again this is a token of how seriously the select committee took the provisions in order to try to make sure that they should not be able to be exercised except in the rarest of cases. 
The other matter to which I want to refer relates to the contribution from Heather Roy. I have just looked over her proposed amendments. It seems to me that one of the difficulties with what is suggested is that all provisions in the legislation relate to Law Commission proposals to remove the right of victims to make oral submissions to the Parole Board. There is no change as far as I can see to the ability to make written submissions to the Parole Board. The omission of these provisions would simply maintain the status quo where certain victims have a right to make submissions. I suspect this would not really be desirable because parole decisions are after all supposed to be based on an assessment of risk and victim submissions are relevant to that only in extremely rare cases: where the victim can provide information relating to the offender’s risk of reoffending. 
In my view—and this was a matter raised in the select committee—to go down the path that the amendments suggest would be to hold out false hope to victims of crime by suggesting that somehow their views will be taken into account in circumstances where the statue simply provides that they cannot be because they are not grounds that the Parole Board can legitimately take into account when it assess risk which is after all its job. Thank you Mr Chair.