Turei Metiria: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Maori Purposes Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:636;Page:6965] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 In the last few remaining moments before the House suspends for its well-earned tea break I would just like to make some initial comments about Part 1. This part deals with the Te Ture Whenua Maori Act particularly around the issues to do with delegations to the Deputy Chief Judge and if I am correct around the judge who did not have his warrant but was sitting and hearing cases and was not eligible to do so. 
I know that although the debate on this question has not been particularly severe or overexcited there are real issues here around the principles of justice that are worthwhile highlighting. I know for example that the Law Commission is very concerned about some of these provisions that retrospectively validate the decisions of the judge who was sitting without a warrant. He was sitting on a large number of cases. It was not just a few cases and on a few days at which point somebody realised there was a mistake and it needed to be fixed; he sat on as far as I am aware 60-odd cases— 
Pita Paraone 
: 80. 
METIRIA TUREI 
: My learned friend tells me 80 cases. So there are real questions around the justice for those people particularly those who lost in those circumstances—those who took cases were heard by this judge and were not successful—and whether their rights have been infringed because there was no validity to the process. They were not properly in the court and dealt with properly by the judge. Those people do have a legitimate case for concern that they did not get justice in the court because the court was not operating lawfully in those circumstances. I have real concerns for them and for the effects that the judgments may have had on them. In some of the cases given that there were 60 in a quite short period of time—a month actually; 60 cases in 30 days—they were not enormous and not particularly time consuming but they were important to the people who brought them to the court looking for justice in a right and proper process. 
I think it is important that this Committee if it is going to pass this legislation and this part acknowledges that those people have had their rights to justice interfered with. That is a fair enough thing to say. If the Committee agrees that this provision should pass then it needs to be very very clear that it has very good reasons for doing so. Part of those reasons would be the justice implications for those who won in those cases. They were successful and have relied on the validity of that decision since it was made and these are decisions that were made 6 years ago in 2000. 
The consequences of that decision could well be economic given that we are talking here about Maori land decisions. They could be to do with issues such as succession and whether shares and land should be transferred or shared between certain members of the family or whanau and people could have made plans and arrangements because of the decisions that were made. To interfere with that now after such a long period of time because of a mistake made by the justice bureaucracy—the court itself and those who oversee the validity of warrants of judges—is in itself an interference with the proper process and with their rights to rely on the court. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.