Katene Rahui: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Katene Rahui: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:530] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 There is a real and very significant risk that by passing this bill this House will penalise hundreds of people on the off chance that we may—I stress may—stop one or even two people who stand accused but are not yet found guilty of the crime of which they are accused. It is important that we as members of Parliament remember as the Hon Dr Michael Cullen said that a fundamental tenet of our criminal justice system is that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The rationale is that it is better to let one guilty person go than to imprison any who are not guilty. So it is important that we keep that in mind when we are remanding a person into custody—they have not yet been found guilty of any crime. They are still presumed innocent of any crime they have been charged with. To remand them into custody which is what this is about is a very heavy penalty. It is a penalty that should be used only rarely in very limited circumstances where the police have sufficient evidence to convince the court that the defendant is highly likely to be convicted of the crime for which he or she stands charged is on a serious charge or is a danger to the public by either interfering with a witness absconding or reoffending while on bail. There is a very real and significant risk that we could be causing injustice. 
The Maori Party is convinced that this bill is a knee-jerk reaction as the member Metiria Turei has said. It is not a well-thought-out response to what everyone agrees is a problem. This bill does nothing to fix the problem. As a House I presume of intelligent people we should be sitting down and thinking this through properly. We should be putting it to a select committee so that people who have more experience in this area than us can give it well-considered thought come to talk to us about it and give us some solutions that are well-thought-through. 
If this bill is passed our wallets will be hit because Vote Corrections no matter what the Minister has told anyone will have to increase in size to pay for the huge increase in remand prisoners—that is people who are still presumed innocent. They have not been found guilty; they are still presumed innocent of any crime. 
The Maori Party agrees that the bill should not be pushed through under urgency. We should give the public a chance to have their say and to put up their ideas for dealing with this problem. And it is essential that Parliament does its job of making laws and does not pass that duty on to the courts. There is a real danger here that if we do not do that then the courts will. It is not the court’s duty to make laws; it is the court’s duty to interpret laws. Parliament should be telling courts what the law is not the other way around. There is a danger there when we let the courts make laws. 
I read from Moana Jackson’s paper  
The 
Maori and the Criminal Justice System: a new perspective—he whaipainga hou 
 Part 2 where he says that “The judge occupies a position in the eyes of the Maori community which is somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand judges are held to be worthy of respect because of their learning and wisdom; on the other they are responsible for injustice because of their service to an often prejudiced and unjust law.” As parliamentarians do we want to be remembered as the Parliament that passed unjust and prejudiced laws? We want to be making laws that will benefit all people and at this stage this law does not benefit Maori. It does not benefit anyone because it is a knee-jerk reaction. It is not doing what it is supposedly designed to do and we need to be able to say to our people and to everyone out there that we have thought this decision through—that we have done what the people say is the best thing to do. 
I continue from Moana Jackson’s paper: “Many Maori are aware of and continue to respect the frequent questioning of colonial policy by the first Chief Justice Sir Charles Martin. There is also continued anger and grievance at Chief Justice Prendergast’s dismissal of the Treaty.”