Law Society concerned by proposed reforms

Proposed reforms by the Law Commission targeting sexual offences involving children and vulnerable complainants, are worrying the Law Society.

Among proposed changes is doing away with the jury and judge system and replacing it with one which in some cases will involve a judge and a couple of private citizens who sit as a jury.

Law Society spokesman Jonathan Krebs says the difficulty with any reform that promotes protection of the complainant within the criminal justice process, is that the integrity of the process itself is compromised.

"Our principal concern is that nothing erodes the right of an accused person to have a fair trial. We want to make sure that anybody who's accused of a crime of any sort in our country has a fair trial."

Jonathan Krebs says there's a need to have a serious look at these proposals which would make fundamental changes to processes that have been followed in New Zealand for a very long time.