Dean Jacqui: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2296. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 The purpose of this bill the Juries (Jury Service and Protection of Particulars of Jury List Information) Amendment Bill is to improve the jury’s administration and also maintain its integrity. Most important and I think this is important and worthy of mention it helps maintain jurors’ privacy their safety—most importantly their sense of safety—and also their security. We are ensuring through this bill that victims are heard they get the support they need and they are not brutalised again when defendants are tried.  
I do not think we should underestimate the impact on the juror whose address and particulars were revealed to a defendant. It is something that must be guarded against and this bill seeks to do just that. Although I acknowledge that one cannot completely hide jurors’ particulars—of course there is the electoral roll and of course there is the phone book—I believe we should be doing everything we can to make jury service a safe activity for those New Zealanders who are called upon to do that.  
Just on that matter the provision in the bill that gives registrars the power to grant a person permanent excusal from serving on a jury on the grounds of disability chronic health problems or indeed age was I suspect misinterpreted by several of the submitters to this bill who labelled it as ageist. I do not believe it was ageist. I believe it provided a little bit of getting rid of some form-filling for those over 65 who for whatever reason decide they do not wish any longer to serve on a jury should they be called. This provision in the bill provides that they do not have to make application each and every time. The view of the Law and Order Committee was that in fact this was a good thing. Rather than making any comment or any ageist reflection on people the select committee regarded it as a good provision one that would make life easier for those people who for whatever reason decide they do not wish to serve any further on juries.  
The main provision of the bill is to remove the addresses of potential jurors from jury lists. It allows the prosecution the defence lawyer or the court-appointed adviser to defendants representing themselves to have automatic access to all that address information on request but it does prevent the accused from ever seeing the potential jurors’ addresses by prohibiting the defence lawyer or the court-appointed adviser from showing the addresses to the accused. It extends section 14A(6) of the Juries Act which makes it clear that misconduct in relation to jury lists may be treated as contempt of court to include the provision that the act of showing the accused or any other persons jurors’ addresses will now be regarded as contempt of court.  
Further changes in the bill as it is returned from the select committee include preventing certain people sentenced to home detention from serving on a jury. This closes a loophole in the Sentencing Amendment Act 2007 which created home detention as a sentence in its own right but failed to amend the Juries Act. This meant that those who had served or were serving home detention could still sit on a jury panel. People convicted to a custodial sentence of more than 3 years would be barred for life from sitting on a jury.  
Further changes to the bill ensure that offenders who are serving a sentence of less than 3 months’ home detention are excused from jury service or are allowed to defer their service until they have completed their sentence. Registrars are given the power to grant a person permanent excusal which I have already mentioned. Currently a jury list must contain the name occupation date of birth and full address of potential jurors. This very important point—this sticking point for jurors—has now been corrected. I commend the bill to the House.