Huo Raymond: Judicature Modernisation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHuo Raymond: Judicature Modernisation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15304. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RAYMOND HUO (Labour): It is a great pleasure to take a call following the Attorney-General. I would regard it as a privilege to take a call on the Judicature Modernisation Bill. This is the second-largest bill I have ever dealt with. The first-largest bill I have dealt with was in 2009 which was a taxation bill nicknamed the “Telephone Book Bill”. This bill I think has just broken the record and is more than 1000 pages long. I rise to support this bill. Labour will support this bill being referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee because it makes a number of necessary updates to the court system. However the provisions will need to be robustly tested to ensure that there are no issues with these reforms.Labour’s vision is of a just society and safe communities. We must strike the right balance between civil and human rights and justice and precautionary principles for instance. We must ensure equal and full access to justice and achieve justice and real public safety. Access to justice empowers citizens and resolves disputes fairly and finally. We must modernise our courts and the court structure in a principled manner with the aim of making them more effective efficient and responsive.It has now been 10 years since Labour disestablished the Privy Council and set up the New Zealand Supreme Court—following the UK approach I should add. It is timely to update our legislation to apply the experiences and lessons we have learnt since then. The Judicature Act is over 100 years old and is seriously out of date. The Law Commission’s recommendation to consolidate it into a single modern clear courts Act with the Supreme Court Act is a long-overdue change.This bill broadly reforms the court system and implements two reports of the Law Commission namely theReview of the Judicature Act 1908: Towards a New Courts Act andAspects of Damages: The Award of Interest on Money Claims. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Law Commission for its thorough analysis and comprehensive reports. The first report—theReview of the Judicature Act 1908: Towards a New Courts Act—is divided into four parts dealing respectively with issues relating to (a) the structure of new courts legislature (b) judges (c) courts and (d) miscellaneous matters.The primary purpose of the review was to clarify and modernise the laws under which New Zealand’s primary trial and appellate courts are constituted. These laws determine how the courts are set up how judges are appointed their jurisdiction their rule-making powers and the procedures by which they administer justice.The bill introduces certain measures with regard to judicial appointments. It is important that there is a clear and publicly known process for judicial appointments. Although there are currently clear and transparent processes for the appointment of District Court judges the same cannot be said of the higher courts. The proposals under this bill will enhance transparency in that regard. Certain provisions are designed to address the issues concerning judicial conflicts of interest.What are particularly worth noting are the provisions dealing with the issues around the commercial list. The High Court commercial list is less relevant than it was because of the general improvements in case management. Many practitioners consider that there is still a need to improve the way in which commercial cases are managed and disposed of. Consideration of what should be done with the commercial list raises the issue of whether there is a need for greater specialisation in the High Court. Allowing judicial panels for specific commercial cases is a welcome change to the justice system allowing real expertise to be developed by judges in what can be thorny and complicated areas of legislation.The court system is still too paper based and allowing a much greater proportion of material to be electronic is a welcome change bringing the court system into modern times and cutting down on waste—and it probably will help save more trees. It is somewhat with a sense of oxymoron that this comes in a bill that is 1182 pages long. Conveniently the bill introduces a presumption that all written judgments will be published online unless there is a good reason not to. The bill enables the use of electronic technology in courts and tribunals allowing court documents to be filed held and issued electronically. This bill introduces a presumption that audiovisual links will be used in criminal procedural matters where statutory criteria are met and removes unnecessary geographic restrictions on its use.The Northern Island court service has recently introduced some electronic changes and its experience is valuable to us. Its courtroom technology programme for example will be helpful in enhancing efficacy by using technology such as the electronic presentation of evidence. It will help improve both the quality and speed of information for those involved in complex court cases where documentary evidence can amount to many thousands of pages just like this bill. Thank you.