Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Again it was a pleasure to sit on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee while we heard submissions or advice on this bill and the lawyers among us took some pleasure in questioning the experts on some of the finer points. This essentially is a bill that brings the military justice system in line with the civilian justice system and that's important because one of the central tenets of the rule of law is that the law is clear and knowable before it applies to anyone. In this case the discrepancies between the procedural safeguards the standards for fitness to stand and even victims' rights were not in alignment and therefore I would argue not really knowable to those who they apply to. And that kind of discrepancy really kind of undermines the rule of law across those jurisdictions.I would like to start by talking about the victims' rights issues. This bill brings the military justice system in line with the 2002 Victims' Rights Act—that's been in application in the criminal justice system at large for some time now. Victims of certain serious sexual and violent offending have had the right to be informed about not only the application of bail but also breaches of bail release and escape of offenders that have offended against them in the civilian justice system; whereas in the military justice system victims of those same types of serious offences have only had the right to be advised and to give their input on bail being granted. So to look at that and think about it carefully even if an offender escaped custody victims in the military justice system were not advised. They were not advised of bail breaches whilst they'd be consulted on whether or not bail is granted. And they're not advised when the offender is released.So those types of offending when you think about the power and control dynamics and when you think about how traumatic these offences are to a victim and their whānau—when you think about that and realise that actually by leaving them in the dark about the release or escape or bail breaches by those offenders we're actually re-traumatising those victims. To find out later—to find out through seeing the offender—whether the bail breach is actually against the victim the next time it happens. It's enormously traumatising for victims not to know and not to be involved in that process at least by being notified. So the military justice system thankfully is now coming into line with what we've known is necessary for victims to have access to justice in the civilian system in those ways.Next is the procedural safeguards and I was somewhat aghast to find that the onus of proof is reversed in the military justice system so that if charged with an offence an accused person in the military system has to prove their innocence to a balance of probability standard; whereas in a civilian system as we all know the prosecution bears the onus of proof—they have to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. That exists because of course every accused person is considered innocent until proven guilty so that fairness prevails in a criminal trial before we can sanction someone. And I mean it is considered incredibly serious to be convicted of any crime in any jurisdiction and to be sanctioned—for an accused person's whole life to be affected whether it's through their career or through imprisonment. Where they've not had the benefit of presumption of innocence it goes against again another central tenet of our criminal justice system. So gladly this bill will bring that procedural safeguard to protect those accused of criminal offending in the military justice system.Lastly the other important standard that's being adopted in this bill through the civilian system is the standard of requiring two expert psychiatric reports before someone is essentially declared or considered unfit to stand trial. In the criminal context unfit to stand trial" means that someone has proven that they suffer from a disease of the mind that renders them unable to know the nature and quality of their actions. So it's a very high standard and this will require the same procedural framework as in the civilian system where we have two psychiatric reports before that's proven. And that again is something that's important for consistency and sort of clarity of our law where someone's being sanctioned or indeed being excluded from ordinary criminal sanction.So I am very happy today to commend this bill to the House because I was so shocked at the complete lack of consistency between these two criminal justice systems for essentially no clear reason. But our law is after the passing of this bill going to be far more consistent and logical across those two jurisdictions so I'm glad to commend this bill to the House."