Speech: Judicial Matters Bill
Mr Speaker, I was thinking about how best to open my speech on this bill, and I happened to raise it with a good friend of mine, Derek Fox, Maori Party Member of the House of Ikaroa Rawhiti, who suggested a line used by Te Kooti back in the 1860’s, which went something like this …
“M te ture anM te ture e aki” or “let the law look after the law.”
Well Mr Speaker, I was so impressed with the depth of knowledge expressed by Mr Fox, that I thought I would see whether I could get a double-up, so I called up another good friend of mine, Rahui Katene, Maori Party Member of the House of Te Tai Tonga, who happens to be an excellent lawyer with very good connections right throughout the South Island and Wellington, who said that when she was appointed Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias said:
"One of the reasons I'm so optimistic about the future is because what happened at Waitangi [ in 1840] is so consciously founded on an expectation that justice will be achieved through law."
So Mr Speaker, given the quality of the contributions of my good friends Derek Fox and Rahui Katene, I am happy to say that it is those thoughts that have helped guide our consideration of this bill about the appointment and conduct of judges.
Mr Speaker, we take it for granted that the public should have confidence in the honesty and integrity of the judiciary, and in the impartiality, consistency and fairness of their decisions, and yet, in the first year of operation of the Judicial Conduct Commission, I note that there were about 100 complaints made against judges of bias, sexism, rudeness, delays, incompetence, inappropriate remarks and a failure to listen, although most of them were dismissed, and none were actually referred to the Attorney General for action.
Mr Speaker, I also note the comment that while Ministers of the Crown are supposed to be accountable to Parliament, judges are only accountable to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Panels for misconduct – which means it is really important that those appeal authorities are functional, efficient, and open to public scrutiny.
So while we support the appointment of a Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner to cover absences and possible conflicts of interest for the Commissioner, I decided to get another view on the whole issue.
While we were up door-knocking for the Maori Party in Hamilton last week (and I’m happy to report to the House that the analysis of the door-knock suggests that the Maori Party will be a shoo-in at the election), I decided to ask another good friend of mine, Angeline Greensill, Maori Party Member of the House of Hauraki-Waikato, what she thought about the appointment of a Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner, and she suggested that we should recommend people who have demonstrated an ability to uphold Kaupapa and Tikanga Maori in the justice system.
She also suggested that we note Moana Jackson’s analysis in Maori and the Criminal Justice System – He Whaipaanga Hou – A New Perspective, where he states: “The background and experience of judges is confined by the ethnocentrism of their own heritage and the social attitudes which they address are determined by the values of the dominant culture”.
Mr Speaker, that report was written in 1988, and so we thought we would see how things have changed over the last two decades, if at all.
What we found was that in 1980, Maori were being convicted twice as often as Pakeha, for crimes to receive a custodial sentence, and in 2006, Maori were still one third more likely to receive a custodial sentence than Pakeha.
What we also found was that while the total number of sentences handed down to Pakeha has remained basically unchanged since 1980, the number of sentences handed down to Maori has more than doubled from 20,000 in 1980 to 42,000 in 2006.
Mr Speaker, I take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt thanks to Derek Fox, Rahui Katene, and Angeline Greensill for the excellent quality of their contributions to this debate, and I look forward to their being able to offer that knowledge, and that analysis to other pieces of legislation, when they join us here in this House on a more permanent basis, after the election.
Of course there are other factors which influence sentencing, but judges are a critical variable in the judicial process, hence the need for scrupulous conduct on their part, and so Mr Speaker, another of the issues we want to raise, is the need to identify judges, whose sentences are so consistently harsh that they may be seen as criminalising youngsters without sufficient consideration for their rehabilitation, or judges who treat the ‘underclass’ much more severely than they treat offenders from the ‘upper class’.
Sometimes a judge’s conduct may not look too bad in a particular case, but show a distinct pattern and bias when considered over a longer period, so we’ll be asking select committee to look into whether there should be room for complaints about conduct based upon a judges' overall record, and not just on specific decisions.
This legislation also proposes to allow the Commissioner to take no further action, if they feel it might be unjustified, and while we accept that proposal, in the interests of honesty and integrity, we would also expect the Commissioner to ensure equality and fairness, to all parties involved in a complaint.
Mr Speaker, the main issue for the Maori Party is that at whatever stage of the justice system our people may be involved, they get a fair, efficient, independent and impartial hearing, which we know from the 2004 Law Commission report, they’re not currently getting.
Maori and Pasifika, consistently tell us how hard it is to get basic information, how hard it is to get a decent lawyer, and how when you get one they cost too much, how some judges are to be avoided like the black plague, and how monocultural, unfriendly and alienating, the whole judicial system is.
Mr Speaker, like everybody else, the Maori Party wants to see a decrease in the number of Maori arrested, convicted and imprisoned through the criminal justice system, but we are also passionate about the pursuit of justice, and the need for respect from the judiciary to Maori people and Maori issues.
Somebody once said that “if peace is not merely the absence of war, but also the presence of justice, then we have no peace in Aotearoa, because we sure ain’t got no **#$*%*!!! justice”.
Well, we don’t get justice by fiddling with existing laws.
We get justice by reconsidering the very principles on which we base our laws, the way in which we make them, the way in which we enforce them, and the way in which we repeal them when we realise how stupid some of them are; and it is in that spirit, that we will be supporting this Bill at first reading.