Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I'm pleased to take a call at the committee stage of the Criminal Cases Review Commission Bill as the chair of the Justice Committee. Can I just first and foremost for those members in the House—this establishes the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the purpose of the commission is to review convictions and sentences and decide whether to refer them to the appeal court. This will replace the power exercised by the Governor-General under section 406 of the Crimes Act 1961 commonly known as the royal prerogative of mercy. The commission will be established as a new independent Crown entity with a membership of no fewer than three but no more than seven commissioners. Can I just acknowledge the work of the select committee. I just remind members that the bill was referred to the committee on 25 October 2018 submissions closed on 7 January 2019 33 submissions were received from groups and individuals and eight submitters were heard orally. As the member that's just resumed his seat—and can I just also send my best wishes to the honourable member's mum in hospital as we think of our mums those who are fortunate enough to have their mums. But I do want to send my best wishes to the honourable member's mum mother. So coming back to the bill and acknowledging that the select committee could not agree on the bill but did make some amendments and that member that just resumed his seat raised a few. In the select committee report though that was received in the House I just want to address a couple of the concerns that the Opposition have raised here in tonight's debate. One was the victim's rights and the other concern that they had in their minority view was around the use of existing structures. It may be useful to the House to be reminded of what's currently available under the existing structures around any person who is convicted of an offence who feels that they suffered a miscarriage of justice. The current process is that they apply to the Governor-General for the exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. The royal prerogative of mercy can among other things be exercised to grant a free pardon or refer those convictions to the Court of Appeal.The member that resumed his seat Tim Macindoe talked about—sorry the Hon Tim Macindoe—the National Party's opposition to this bill because in parts they believed the existing structures that are around right now will meet the test of the appeal rights. However in the information we received at the select committee this is an independent body that we are talking about here: the establishment of a commission. In that independence—because currently the existing structure is that the lawyers of the Ministry of Justice have to take up the challenge on behalf of anyone that wants to appeal or apply for a miscarriage of justice. So the establishment of this commission will allow the independent dedicated unit to thoroughly investigate the concerns that an individual may have around the miscarriage of justice. So I believe that the proposed position of the Opposition around current processes do not allow that level of independence that level of due diligence or that level of being able to justify that people have got a right to appeal.Just to again alleviate some of the concerns of members in the House it's really clear and the committee also received advice from overseas jurisdictions about what can be put up for review by the commission to stop the so-called open gates or floodgates—that everybody's going to come to the commission and want their particular cases appealed. So here are some of the principles as per the royal prerogative that the commission will adopt in their establishment. Essentially the courts should have [the] opportunity to [consider] a person's conviction or sentence if a miscarriage of justice may have occurred:"—so this is what we're trying to do with this commission. The "convicted persons are normally expected to exercise their rights to appeal against conviction or sentence before asking the Commission to intervene:"—so clearly we've got to exhaust the system now around an appeal before you put your case to the commission. Thirdly "the referral process is not an opportunity to simply repeat arguments or re-examine evidence that has already been considered by the courts:"—so again if you didn't get your way in the courts you cannot just present to the commission and take that particular route.The last fourth and fifth points are around the principles that will guide the commission. One is around ensuring that you're producing new evidence. One of the considerations is that if it's not new evidence then obviously it's not going to meet the test of the commission. Again if it's been previously examined by other courts then it won't be accepted by this commission. So those principles as currently applied under the royal prerogative of mercy simply will be transferred over to the commission. So the issue around existing structures—hopefully I've addressed the difference of what the Government's proposing around the independence of a commission and that the guidance currently in operation around what meets the prerogative of mercy will be transferred over to the commission.The second point I just want to address in my second contribution is around victim rights. We have two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the name of Chris Penk. I wanted to share with the members of the committee that currently the Victims' Rights Act 2002 continues to be applied so under SOP 399 this side of the House feels that those concerns are covered under that Victims' Rights Act 2002. So we won't be supporting SOP 399.In terms of SOP 400 again where it removes the commission's discretion around timeliness of notifying victims our concern on this side is if the appeal isn't successful but we've told victims before they've made the determination that we are going to reopen the case that could in itself re-victimise the victims because there'll be an expectation that we're going to look at this case. But the commission may decide for whatever its reasons they're not going to pursue the appeal process. So SOP 400 in terms of removing the discretion of the commissioner to make the timeliness of notifying victims could in our view re-victimise the victims. So I just wanted to ensure that the member has had a response on this side about why we will be opposing particularly SOP 399 and SOP 400 for the facts that I've laid out covered under the Victims' Rights Act 2002. The discretion is a really important point to ensure that we are not re-victimising the victims in the case that appeal is not successful.So that's my contribution. I know other members from the Justice Committee are dying to get up and make a contribution and I might pick up some of the other points that may unfold as part of this debate but I commend this bill and look forward to other people contributing to the debate."