Franks Stephen: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11348] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to advise the House of the reasons why we will vote against the third reading of this bill. We will do so primarily as a way of recording once again our concern that New Zealand’s sovereignty and the position of New Zealand’s service people on operations overseas may one day be very sadly affected by the operation of the International Criminal Court. Offering immunities to judges prosecutors and other staff of the International Criminal Court is not a matter that seriously concerns us—indeed we think that it is inevitable and sensible should the International Criminal Court ever operate in New Zealand. The Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee chaired by the Hon Peter Dunne did the same kind of superficial job on this bill as was done on the bill passed in 2000—which this bill expands and makes more easy to implement. ACT will therefore vote against the third reading to remind the House that bills implementing international treaties should be taken very seriously indeed. 
The Hon Lockwood Smith mentioned that when we bring international treaties into our law by reference they could have meanings that we completely fail to anticipate. The direct purpose of this bill is to extend immunities that are very longstanding. 
 As Mr Keith Locke for the Greens said the immunities are an attempt to ensure that nations can be civilised with each other. Diplomacy cannot occur unless diplomatic agents can be sure they will not be taken hostage and their presence in a foreign country will not be used as a chance to exercise pressure and use them as symbols or targets for action that is really part of international position taking. 
We do not want any prospect of being seen in the company of nations like Iran which seized the American mission people and held them for over 200 days. We do not want to be seen as the kind of country that is simply unsafe and where diplomats can be insulted by robbery or crime or otherwise with impunity. So this bill should be relatively straightforward in that area but as well as our concern to make a point about the International Criminal Court we believe that this bill is a piece of clumsy drafting and the select committee did not seem to take note of that. 
The bill has added in power to exempt or give immunity to witnesses or other persons who may come in for International Criminal Court proceedings without recording that it is perfectly appropriate for New Zealand to confine any immunities to the sorts of risks that Mr Keith Locke mentioned—that is the risk of someone using New Zealand law to try to make political points by seizing people who have come here for a court proceeding and charging them with offences essentially relating to things that have happened outside New Zealand and perhaps many years ago. 
It is quite proper that New Zealand can reassure people coming here for International Criminal Court proceedings including witnesses who may be thugs in their own country or who may have robbed their own country taken their treasury and put it in Switzerland. Despite the foulness of their deeds if those sorts of people are to come here for court proceedings they need to know that they at least will not face New Zealand law in respect of that kind of matter in case that frustrates the purposes of the International Criminal Court. 
But I can see no reason whatsoever that they should be immune from the ordinary operation of New Zealand law for offences that they commit while they are here. Why should New Zealand allow yet another category of people to ignore their parking tickets at the bottom end; or their manslaughter offences at another stage; or even as I understand it their rapes? The Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee might for example have asked the Government just how many rapes or serious assaults have been committed by people with the benefit of diplomatic immunity in the period of the Labour Government. I would venture that it would shock people to know how often people with immunity do commit offences and in the case of decent countries get bundled home and in the case of other countries stay on as an affront to New Zealanders. 
There was no reason why this bill could not have made a significant distinction between people like the judges of the criminal court who could be expected to need a very wide form of immunity and the hangers-on some of whom we can almost certainly predict will be undesirables. Why should they for example be allowed to bring their liquor cabinets in without paying duty? There is nothing in this bill that tells us that will not occur. As an amusing aside we did find out that a bunch of European Union diplomats are hanging about somewhere outside New Zealand waiting until we pass this bill to get in. One wonders whether it is because their bags are clanking with bottles and they cannot bear the thought of paying their duty. 
Simon Power 
: And cigars. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: And cigars. Or is it because they have children they cannot control and they know they had better not bring them here until they have immunity for the traffic offences and worse that their children are going to commit? 
During the Committee stage the Minister in the chair was given a chance to explain exactly why there is such urgency and why the European Union mission members appeared to think New Zealand is the kind of country they cannot come to until they are immune from local law. Could it have had anything to do with the abolition of the Privy Council? Do they now fear that perhaps we have kangaroo courts here and there is no right of appeal to an independent judiciary?Perhaps the European Union has been watching what is happening and they realise that now they would be subject— [ 
Interruption 
]. The former? The member thinks it is the fatted— 
Simon Power 
: I think it’s the bottles in the bags. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The bottles clinking in the bags? Whatever it is it is puzzling to us that the Minister did not choose to explain why European mission members would be so afraid of our justice system. It does seem to me that at least the leaders of the missions might have taken the risk of being here on their very best behaviour without immunity and seen whether there was a problem while we put this legislation through at an ordinary pace. 
I want to come back to the principal reason why we are voting against this bill—this uncritical acceptance of the International Criminal Court. This is a court that the United States has not joined and that the United States is so concerned about that it has gone round to somewhere between 60 and 80 countries—we do not know exactly how many have signed up—and got agreements that these countries will not subject United States personnel to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In other words the country that should be our chief ally has decided that this court is a risk to it and before it will have its servicemen deployed in many countries they must undertake not to hand its people over to this court. 
Whatever this Government may think about international agencies that is a very serious consideration for us. This court could be as the US fears a victors’ tribunal. It has undefined crimes. We have put into our criminal law in effect by proxy crimes that no New Zealand lawyer can define. No one knows exactly what the crime of aggression is going to be and it will be applied by judges who may share nothing of our history or our traditional respect for the rule of law—for rules known in advance and for the protective rules of evidence that are designed to prevent miscarriage of justice processes that are in effect glorified lynch mobs. We will not control who the judges are. 
This bill should have been rejected by more in this House to make the same point.