Bridges Simon: Limitation Bill — First Reading 
Bridges Simon: Limitation Bill — First Reading 
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SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on the Limitation Bill and to talk about what is— 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Small speech! 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I agree with the member; it is about a small discrete issue. Nevertheless the bill is very important in terms of the rule of law. It has been interesting to listen to other speakers in this debate. I agree with them that there is a tension in this area between on the one hand the interests of the putative claimant who wants to bring his or her claim for ever and eternity and on the other hand the interests of the defendant who wants there to be certainty and finality. But when one gets away from the individual players one finds there is indeed also a higher purpose and principle involved here which fundamentally concerns the rule of law. I will touch on that shortly. 
But firstly I will talk about someone who knows it seems quite a lot about limitation periods: the Leader of the Opposition Phil Goff. My reading recently has made it quite clear to me that he knows his limitation period is not 6 years as it is in this bill but in fact 3 years. That has been made quite clear in recent writings. One senior Labour MP said “We had a pact. It was for the full three years.” Another former Labour Minister who was at the Cabinet meeting that was said to have been held also said there had been a pact. So it is quite clear that the Leader of the Opposition has a 3-year limitation period. Of course that does not mean that his time will not expire before then and that is a critical point in relation to limitation periods. It is about the limits the outside limits and Mr Goff may not reach that period. As I say it is quite clear that Mr Goff should be speaking in this debate. He is someone who knows a lot about having not a self-imposed limitation period but a party-imposed limitation period if things do not go well. 
I will say the concepts and principles involved in this bill are very important then I will touch on the practical aspects. But I now come back to another debate that is being held here between the Attorney-General— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: You make a mockery of the law. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I have got them going have I not? 
Hon Member 
: You have! 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: The members opposite know that what I am saying has a little ring of truth to it. They have read the  
Listener 
 article as well. There were a lot of other interesting points in that material. I can tell that Opposition members want to read it. I liked what Phil Twyford had to say— 
Jacqui Dean 
: What did he have to say? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: He said: “We allowed ourselves to be associated with a set of reforms that really provoked the right wing because the family and gender relations and parenting are the inner sanctum of the—” 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member is clearly not referring to this Limitation Bill that we are debating in the House. I wish he would stick to the bill. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: The member is correct. This debate should be within the confines of the bill. The member is entitled to make points that are outside it or draw them in briefly but that should not be the substance of the member’s speech. The member will continue. 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I will talk about the concepts involved with limitation law. Before I do that I come back to a debate between the Attorney-General and Charles Chauvel from the Opposition. The Attorney-General is quite right when he says this bill has languished. It is an issue that has languished. We have had three reports from the Law Commission in the 1980s the 1990s and the 2000s yet the previous Labour Government was more interested in electoral finance reform—let us be charitable to it—than in dealing with the real issues. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Could the member read somebody else’s lines? 
SIMON BRIDGES 
: I am happy to say those are the Attorney-General’s lines and quite right they are as well. 
The concept here in this bill is very important because court adjudication really is the ultimate means of enforcing rights. It is the mainstay of any system governed by the rule of law yet what we must also factor in here is that the prospect of litigation also creates substantial uncertainty: uncertainty for the defendant who is yet to know whether a claim will be brought. That can weaken the rule of law because people cannot fully enjoy their rights. Yes the issue is about the claimant and the defendant and their interests but there is also a point here about the rule of law because fundamentally people have the right to have some certainty in the law to know what they are up against and to not go on indefinitely with uncertainty wondering about what may come and what the legal position may be. So there is a strong public utility in ensuring that the possibility of initiating litigation is not open-ended. In practice of course this means time limits and the limitation period and in this bill a limitation period of 6 years has been chosen. 
There are other tensions involved not just between the claimant and the defendant but also between finality and the truth. When we put a limitation period in we are saying that is it and no one can go past it. We are saying it does not matter about the merits of the case and we do not want to know the truth; we want finality. Those two values come in and clash with each other in relation to limitation law. I think this bill gets the balance quite right with a limitation period of 6 years. Six years is a period known to our law in this country and it is right here. 
Something else that I will touch on while I am talking about principles and concepts is the issue of resources and the consideration of resources. The courts like other public bodies that we deal with whether they are ones in the hospital sector or the education sector have limited resources. So it is reasonable when putting parties through the not insubstantial—and often exceptionally expensive—process of litigation that we do it on the basis of fresh disputes. It is reasonable that we litigate on disputes where people can still remember with accuracy what happened where the documents are still there and where everything is still as it should be rather than trying to litigate grievance issues that are quite old and have been around for some time. That raises another point: the rectitude of the outcome which is very important. That is the necessity that we have claims and cases going to court where the evidence is fresh and has not eroded. 
Those are some of the principles in this area. I will also touch on the practicalities of this legislation. I agree with the member Charles Chauvel and what he has said here which is that this bill is about fairly nuts and bolts stuff. It is pretty practical in its application to legal claimants and defendants so that they know whether cases can be brought. A lawyer worth his or her salt really knows that the first question he or she has to ask is whether a matter is statute barred and whether the parties are out of time because if they are it is all over and there is no examination of the merits of the case. 
Finally I say quite clearly this situation is not like the matters shown in  
Cold Case 
. This bill does not apply to criminal cases so it is not about situations like those shown in that programme where the characters go back and solve murders that occurred many years ago. This bill applies only to the civil sphere. I think we as a society make the clear policy choice that we feel we can and should limit civil claims. But certainly truly criminal matters such as murder and the likes of it are much more serious matters and we do not have a limitation period applying to them although the courts can and do issue stays of proceedings for exceptionally old cases where the evidence has eroded too much. 
This is a good bill it is a solid bill and it is a significant bill. It is not just about the individual participants; it is also about the rule of law. As we have also seen it is quite clear that Mr Phil Goff the Leader of the Opposition knows a little about limitation periods as well. His period is 3 years. It will be interesting to see what follows it.