Beaumont Carol: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — Second Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21428] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I am rising as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee to speak on the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill which Labour is supporting now to go to the Committee stage. There has been quite significant debate over this bill and although I agree with Mr Bridges that this is not about a game I think perhaps that my view on this bill is somewhat different. I think at stake are some fairly fundamental protections for people to ensure that they are treated fairly within the justice system. That is not a minor matter; that is actually a very serious matter which is why this bill has become so controversial and why the Government has struggled to get support to move this bill along. I do not think that everybody has been playing a game; I think there have been really fundamental issues at stake. 
The bill contains a major overhaul of criminal procedure in New Zealand—there is no question about that—and Labour supports the need for a substantial overhaul of that criminal procedure. In fact in October 2007 Labour established a review of criminal procedure in New Zealand which was undertaken by the Ministry of Justice in collaboration with the Law Commission. 
We voted for this bill to go to the select committee and gave substantial and serious consideration to its features. It is a substantial bill—526 pages long. As Chester Borrows indicated the select committee has worked well together and it has been well chaired by Chester Borrows. But I also note here that Charles Chauvel has played an exceptionally important role in both the select committee process and the hearing of submissions—in teasing out what was being said by the various submitters and in looking in depth at the implications of this bill—and in the role of getting us to the point we are at now where we still have a bill that we can proceed with. I acknowledge the intellect and integrity with which Charles Chauvel has dealt with this bill. 
As I said the bill was stalled in Parliament because of opposition. That opposition was substantial and it was not that people were opposing the bill just for the hell of it. The Government could not—and did not in the end—ignore the substantial opposition to what was controversial. An increasing number of legal experts were indicating concerns about policy and about the bill as it stood. That included the New Zealand Law Society the New Zealand Bar Association and the Criminal Bar Association of New Zealand. That opposition also followed criticism from the Chief Justice and the late Chief District Court Judge on aspects of the bill so we are talking about a fair weight of opposition to the bill as it was. 
We certainly agree that the principal statutes governing criminal procedure are out of date and excessively inflexible; indeed there are still things to be done in that regard. In my role as Labour’s spokesperson on women’s affairs I am certainly very mindful of the need for victims of crime not to be unduly disadvantaged by an inflexible out-of-date and slow criminal justice system. But we did not believe that the bill as it stood would achieve the intended reforms and as indicated we had serious concerns about the implications of the bill for the public’s access to justice as it was reported back. 
We had quite a substantial minority report that outlined those objections which included one about the threshold for jury trials. Simon Bridges in the contribution he just made seemed to think that that matter was not so significant but in fact jury trials are a fundamental part of our current system. We cannot start to move the bits without looking at their wider implications and we had many people come to our select committee and talk about one specific point—the threshold for jury trials. In the end it is as one person described it probably one of the most fundamental parts of our democracy because it is where—directly—citizens get to have a significant say on what happens to another citizen of this country. The consequences of course of going through the criminal justice system can be very severe both in terms of reputation and also in terms of incarceration—the actual taking away of a person’s liberty. These are fundamentally important things and the importance of jury trials is a cornerstone of our system as it currently stands. 
Our minority report also looked at issues around defence disclosure cases proceeding in the defendant’s absence and compliance cost orders. Those were probably the major areas so we are pleased that at the Committee stage the Government intends to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper that will address those concerns. We look forward to that and as Charles Chauvel has indicated we will be putting forward further matters in a Supplementary Order Paper at that point. They will include things like trials in absentia and sentencing indications which as Mr Chauvel mentioned could perhaps be formalised in some way because they appear to be working well. 
We agree that this legislation was needed but believe that it did not do the work in a manner that was appropriate. In fact it led us down the track of some things that even the Attorney-General had quite a scathing report on in terms of this bill which said that it quite unjustifiably contravened the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in a number of ways including the allowing of criminal trials to proceed without the accused being present and the allowing of courts to order the retrial of an acquitted defendant if new evidence came to light. These matters when the Government’s own Attorney-General is quite scathing about them are serious so we are glad that we have moved this on to this point. 
I look forward to the Committee stage of this bill at some point. But I do think we all need to recognise that there is more that needs to be done if we are seriously going to address the problems with the current criminal procedure system which are excessive cost excessive delay excessive complexity and an outdated legislative framework. But to deal with those matters especially that last one—the legal framework—we are getting into the territory of fundamental rights and the very very serious matters that form the basis of our legal system. We will need to make sure that any reforms adequately take account of those things. Thank you.