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It seems that proposed
wide-ranging changes to the system of trial by jury, which were flagged by
Justice Minister Phil Goff some months ago, are at least in some respects
deeply controversial, as the minister himself has said he expects them to be.
It appears at least two of the city's more seasoned defence lawyers will be
beating a path to the door of the select committee which will be hearing what
people think about the bill. Peter Coles and Fergus Steedman say they are not happy about changes which would
see deposition hearings reduced to handed-up, written evidence only, which
would mean no cross examination of evidence would be possible. It looks like
Mr Goff wants the number of deposition hearings reduced on the grounds that
they are clogging the courts. But of course it could also be argued that if
reducing access to them impacts adversely on the rights of accused people,
then more resources -- judges, and so forth -- should be put into the justice
system if there is a workload problem, rather than the quality of justice
diluted. Another part of the mooted changes
which the lawyers say may weaken the rights of accused people is the move to
majority verdicts and away from the current unanimous requirement. They say
there is a problem there because of the Court of Appeal's seeming reluctance
in certain circumstances to overturn jury verdicts and the weakening of
unanimity therefore could operate against a defendant because what once had
to be unanimous no longer needs to be. Again, it is an issue which will be
well worthy of canvassing when the public is called on to have its say. There
is no way that considerations of convenience or efficiency should be allowed
to take precedence over the fair treatment of someone appearing before the
courts. But having said all that, and
acknowledging that our system of justice does comprise a delicate set of
checks and balances, it doesn't mean the system is immutable and beyond
improvement or reform. Certainly in such a system it must be borne in mind
that a change in one area can have an impact -- foreseen or not -- elsewhere,
but there will be widespread support, all the same, for change to the
hitherto rigid double jeopardy rule. It does, as Mr Goff says, bring the
justice system into disrepute when someone can publicly thumb their nose at
society by subverting the course of justice because they know they can't be
tried twice for the same offence even if it is later learned that they did
the deed. A similar "commonsense"
view might be taken of the abandonment of unanimous jury verdicts on the
grounds that people aren't like that -- get 12 in a room and there is
something hopelessly artificial about forcing them to all see things the same
way. Mr Goff promises "huge safeguards" to ensure that changing the
double jeopardy rule doesn't damage anyone's rights, and similarly, maintains
11-one jury verdicts won't upset the balance of our justice system. We shall
see, for as the minister himself notes, put together, the changes he is
proposing are among the most important we have seen in this area in recent
times. One more thing: Every town needs an icon, and given Dannevirke's heritage, a Viking statue would seem to be
an admirable idea. So it is pleasing to learn that the idea hasn't been
totally discarded and may yet be a starter despite opposition, some of which
sounds over-imaginative, to put it mildly. |
