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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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The Christchurch Civic
Crèche case raises major issues about our adversarial criminal justice
system, United Future justice spokesman Murray Smith said today in calling
for major changes. "While there were
also serious concerns about the way children's evidence was collected and
assessed in that case, the essential problem is that our justice system is
not centred on the need to find the truth," Mr Smith said as the select
committee report into the case was tabled in Parliament today. "Every lawyer and
judge in the country will tell you that adversarial justice systems, such as
the one New Zealand uses, are largely detailed semantic arguments over the
precise wording of statutes and whether the police can prove each ingredient
of an offence without the defendant contributing. "Finding the truth
is a hopeful by-product of the system but not its central focus. Accordingly,
outcomes such as in the Ellis case, which give rise to public doubt, will
always occur in an adversarial system," Mr Smith said That is why the Justice
and Electoral Committee has sought an inquiry as to whether the system should
change from adversarial one to an inquisitorial one, at least for child sex
offences, Mr Smith said, "It is also why
United Future's justice policy seeks a major overhaul of the court system to
bring in inquisitorial element for all cases." Mr Smith said the nub
on the committee's response was in a paragraph he had inserted: "The Ellis case
revolved primarily around findings of fact based on the credibility of the
children's evidence. However the committee accepts that it is both impossible
and undesirable to rehear the evidence in the Ellis case due to lapse of
time. The committee therefore considers that the best that can now be
achieved is to look to the future in respect of these matters." The Evidence Bill, in
particular, would allow issues relating to the giving of evidence by children
to be examined closely, he said. |
