Worth Richard: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Worth Richard: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21018] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 In the world of spin and super-spin the Associate Minister of Justice has no equal. He has made a number of extravagant and completely wrong statements. We know only too well that this bill would not have got as far as it has—and it may yet falter—but for the assistance of the Greens. 
 I wonder what Labour members opposite made last night of the comment of the Green MP Mr Locke who disarmingly said and I paraphrase: “This is a bad bill but we will vote for it.” So Labour and Green have coalesced for present purposes in order to see the passage of this legislation which National on no basis will support. We have been opposed to this bill for a number of reasons right from the very beginning. Although we accept that where the State is a jailer—where it has a responsibility for prisons—it has an obligation to protect prisoners and ensure their safe and reasonable treatment but it is quite another thing to provide a statutory regime for prisoners to sue. 
In the course of this debate I have drawn attention to something I think is truly bizarre. Just across the way in the Court of Appeal the Government’s lawyers are saying that there should be no right to compensation. It is wrong that there should be compensation. It is sufficient when breaches of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act occur that there should be a declaration. Yet here in Parliament the Minister has said with repeated fervour that there should be compensation rights. 
We have been treated to statements about our international law obligations that are plainly wrong. The Justice and Electoral Committee was properly apprised of the position but the Minister has sadly misunderstood the legal situation. We are party to a number of international treaties. One of those treaties is the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It is known in the trade as the “CAT” convention. It was signed by New Zealand on 14 January 1986 and it was ratified by New Zealand on 10 December 1989. We are a party to that treaty arrangement. But we entered a specific reservation consistent with our international obligations to that treaty with reference to article 14 of the convention to provide that we were prepared to provide compensation only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. We entered a reservation to that treaty that there would be occasional cases—hopefully occasional—of abuse where there would be ex gratia payments. This Government has gone way way beyond that for no good reason. 
There will be a lot of problems with the legislation. Let me explain quickly why that will be so. The regime proposes that where a prisoner sues and gets a chunk of money the damages will be awarded to the victims of that offender. I would like to take two illustrations to show what sort of problems will arise. 
First there is the situation of living victims. How will the damages be apportioned? I take the case of the serial rapist offender—a male who has raped say five women. How will the damages be awarded to each victim? Will they be awarded equally? Will the victim who suffered the most horrendous event receive more money? Will the victim for whom the scarring of the particular event was the most traumatic receive more money? That as the Minister has said is all to be decided by a new tribunal on the papers. How will those judgments be made? The regime is ludicrous. That is the case when there are living victims. 
What about the second case when the victims are unknown or comprise a very large class? How will the damages be apportioned? I take the case of the drug dealer who sold drugs through a middleman to scores of people. How will that class of victim be established? If the class of victim cannot be established is it appropriate that the offender retain the damages awarded? That is what this regime provides for. 
I was interested to see that the Minister was prepared to credit the Green Party with the case that National has determinedly argued for: an independent prison inspector to comprehensively inspect and report on the state of our prisons. That was not a Green proposal. That is actually a National Party proposal. It is referred to in the commentary on the bill. A really good illustration of what can be done is Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales. That was established in 1981. It adopted a World Health Organization model of healthy prisons as a basis for inspections. 
We can never completely rule out that claims for monetary compensation will not occur. But where they do occur I would argue that those claims should be made on an ex gratia basis outside the legal system. In other words they should be made in accordance with the international treaty obligations that we have taken up. 
I also say that where prison abuse does occur prisoners’ complaints should be dealt with by an effective complaints process and disciplinary action against the jailers who violated the human rights of the prisoner. That may mean—as has happened in the past—that jailers are dismissed. It may mean that jailers face a disciplinary process that may have monetary consequences for them. What the Government has done is short-sighted foolish and driven by panic.