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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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More police, more prisons and some fundamental overhauls of two key
acts of Parliament are priorities in the justice and law areas, writes
Bernard Robertson Whoever the next government is, it
will have to face up to some immediate problems in law and justice, and then deal
with some longer-term problems as well. The first challenge is the question
of an inquiry into not only the Peter Ellis case but also every case in the
last 16 years in which evidence has been given by psychologists under section
23G(2)(c) of the Evidence Act. This section, introduced in 1969,
was denounced as meaningless at the time. Probably hundreds of people have
been imprisoned and separated from their children because of evidence given
under this section. People with such dubious
convictions are still being harassed by government agents today as they try
to create new lives. This year, a Court of Appeal
judgment set out how evidence should be given under this section in order to
be fair and meaningful. It is dear that in earlier cases the evidence was not
given in this way. In fact, in the Peter Ellis case the judge would not allow
the defence to produce precisely the kind of evidence the Court of Appeal now
says must be produced. All convictions in which this section has been used
thus came under a cloud. The Minister of Justice issued a
press release which said that there were no problems with the section and
that the case only applied to its own facts. This appalling nonsense was an
example of the poor quality of legal advice the Minister of Justice has been
receiving and this is itself a priority the Government must do something
about. Strangely, this section does not
appear in the draft Evidence Bill that the Government introduced into
Parliament. There is therefore no ground on which one can possibly say that
an inquiry into its operation is required, ft cannot be just quietly dropped;
all the convictions obtained using this section must be reviewed. It is notable that the Law
Commission, in its report on evidence law, recommended retaining the section
although it couldn't give any good reason why. The Law Commission is a
candidate for cost cutting. It has produced little of any value in the last
15 years and is dominated by its staff and by strange appointments made by
both Margaret Wilson and Doug Graham. The next government either has to
appoint a new president who will buck the Law Commission up, or abolish it. The next immediate challenge is
the regulation of the legal profession. A bill was put into the House last
year to create a new structure for the New Zealand Law Society. This was the
product of years of dithering by both National and Labour governments and of
negotiation between the Ministry of Justice and the vested interests of the
Law Society. When one includes the consultants'
reports and so on, this has been going on for 10 years. The bill that appeared was a
cumbersome monster which proposed to replace an outdated over-rigid structure
with a new over-rigid structure. Even after the select committee stage it was
threatened with so many amendments from both Government and Opposition that
the Government dropped it. There are several aspects of the bill
which are simply unacceptable and must be changed. The main one is the
proposal that even lawyers who do not want to belong to the New Zealand Law
Society will be regulated by it. If this fundamental feature is to be
changed, the bill will require a major rewrite. It needs substantial
rewriting in any case to get rid of the long-winded disciplinary provisions. The long-term challenge facing the
new government is in penal policy and police and prison administration. The
evidence from the United States, where states and cities with different
policies can be compared, is overwhelming that the way to cut crime is to
increase the numbers of police and people in prison. This is bad news for the
vested interests involved in our expensive and ineffective alternative
punishments, such as the youth Justice System, community service and so on. By the standards of the rest of
the English-speaking world, where police numbers are low compared to other cultures,
New Zealand is under-policed. At least another 1000 police and 1006 civilian
staff are needed to bring the figures up to British standards. The trouble is
that few in government are happy with the police administration and an
increase in size of the police of that nature will require a considerable
influx of experienced officers from Britain and elsewhere. The recent reported crime figures
are not to be taken seriously as a guide to the level crime. Police crime
statistics tell us as much about police activity as criminal activity. What
is required to track changes in crime is a regular victim survey. The claim
by the Commissioner of Police that levels of unreported crime remain constant
is just not correct. The introduction of community policing schemes and
increasing foot patrols can be expected to lead to increases in reporting of burglary
and vandalism. In one year reported rapes in London rose by 16 per cent and
this was hailed by the Metropolitan Police as it meant that women were
showing more confidence in police investigation. More police and more prisons is
clearly the way to reduce crime. The youth justice system needs to be
overhauled. It is a system capable of dealing only with the basically
compliant youth. It is incapable of dealing with the sociopath who is the
future career criminal. Most of all, the Labour Party has to realise that the
victims of crime are overwhelmingly the poor. There are still too many on the
Left who regard themselves as representing and defending the criminals. It is
Labour voters who suffer most from crime. |
