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Law Society's warning over 'secret courts'

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 26 Aug 2015, 10:32am
Auckland High Court (NZME.)
Auckland High Court (NZME.)

Law Society's warning over 'secret courts'

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 26 Aug 2015, 10:32am

The Law Society believes the government is travelling down a dangerous path with last minute additions to the Health and Safety Reform Bill.

Those changes allow for closed court proceedings in matters where national security is concerned - which means a person can be tried and convicted of a criminal offence without seeing all the Crown's information, and without even being present.

Law Society spokesman Austin Forbes QC insists it flies in the face of important basic rights of open justice.

"It's contrary to fundamental concepts of a fair trial, and once you start making any sort of inroad into that, you've got to be very careful that it's justified, if indeed it can be justified at all," he said.

Forbes QC claims that even the Law Commission has identified significant issues with these matters.

"The use of any form of evidence, whether it's national security sensitive information or otherwise in a criminal trial, where the accused does not have access or knowledge of it, or full access or knowledge of it is really quite unacceptable."

Labour MP David Parker backed the Law Society's criticisms of the provisions in parliament yesterday, saying "it is most unusual that we would, in this parliament, pass legislation that took away the right of an accused to hear the evidence that was being used against the accused."

 

 

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