Yule LawrenceLAWRENCE YULE (National—Tukituki): It's my pleasure to speak on the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill. As has already been outlined by my colleagues last evening we are opposing the bill and there's a very simple reason for that: we just don't believe it is necessary.This bill establishes a Criminal Cases Review Commission" and "The Commission's purpose is to review convictions and sentences and decide whether to refer them to the appeal court." As has previously been said this will replace a power currently exercised by the Governor-General. The Criminal Cases Review Commission provides a mechanism for addressing miscarriages of justice. As an independent body it can refer cases back to the appeal courts but it does not determine guilt or innocence. In our view on this side of the House this will open the floodgates to a whole lot of people who believe they have a miscarriage of justice and will allow a lower threshold of entry into the appeal system than currently exists.I'll remind members on the other side of the House who think this is such a wonderful idea that two-thirds of the commissioners in this bill are not required to be legally qualified making untrained and unaccountable commissioners extremely powerful and the remaining one-third of the commissioners are not required to have criminal legal expertise or experience. This sets a very dangerous precedent. It should not be easy for somebody to actually bypass the court system if they want to appeal something because at the moment they have to go to the Governor-General. It's a high threshold for that to happen and as part of the Governor-General's decision making she or he at the time takes advice from the Minister in charge with all the lawyers.The status quo does mean that there is an appeal mechanism currently available. It's not used that often but it is available. What we've got here is we're setting up another commission. We're advised that the set-up cost of this is $2.3 million to establish and it will have an annual operating budget of $3.9 million per year. So it's not an insignificant entity. The mere nature of that would indicate to me and members of this side of the House that we are expecting an influx of these types of appeal processes and as I said before it will lead to the floodgates being opened.The low threshold for people referring things back to the court will actually see more pressure placed on the courts and we already know that the courts are overloaded. We already know that in many court jurisdictions people are waiting for months—sometimes over a year—for a hearing. So we are now allowing somebody to go through this process and I remind members on the other side on any crime not just a certain threshold of crime. On any crime they can take it to this authority.So I remind members the commission will receive applications from eligible persons or their authorised representatives carry out activities it considers necessary to make the functions known to and understood by the public—in other words to promote the body—have the ability to undertake initial inquiries into a conviction or sentence undertake thematic reviews into a practice policy procedures etc. and have reasonable powers to obtain information relevant to the investigation. There is a whole lot in these things that is unclear and I remind members of this House that it should be by exception that this type of appeal to the Governor-General be used.What we're having here is normalising this and there's a whole lot of things that are equally not laid out in this bill. The bill is silent on the possibility that a decision by the commission could be subject to judicial review proceedings. In other words at the moment this decision by the commission is not appealable on either side—even by the court or the people that represented the original prosecution. There is no limit on the types of matters that can be reviewed—as long as it's a crime. This opens the floodgates. In our view it should be strongly opposed and we are opposing it."