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Andrew Dickens: NZ's justice system is too adversarial

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Jun 2019, 11:52AM
The real problem with our justice system is that it is adversarial.

Andrew Dickens: NZ's justice system is too adversarial

Author
Andrew Dickens,
Publish Date
Mon, 10 Jun 2019, 11:52AM

COMMENT:

The Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group has finished its tour of New Zealand and reported back to the Government.

The working group is chaired by former National MP Chester Borrows. He’s an interesting chap, Chester. Firstly Chester in not his name, it’s a nickname. It took him three goes to get the Whanganui seat. He’s a lay preacher who gave Israel Folau a serve in 2018. He proposed a softening of the smacking law and after a visit to Parihaka had a road to Damascus experience regarding the teaching of Māori history in our schools, which will become obvious soon.

So the Advisory Group has had a good hard look at our justice system and come up with the hardly surprising conclusion that the system is broken, and that we need to transform it into something better and fairer.

Chester Borrows told us the report is particularly critical of how victims are treated within the system, saying people have a lack of faith in it, and that suggests it is not fit for purpose.

Victims are interrogated and presumed as guilty as the accused. Outcomes vary the more you spend on a lawyer. The justice system takes forever, it’s confusing and alienating and favours people with money and education.

There’s criticism that the system focuses on punishment, rather than rehabilitation and there is widespread frustration that mental illness, addiction, and drug and alcohol abuse are treated as criminal justice issues, not health issues.

Borrows says the group is most worried about how the justice system affects Māori - who make up 51 per cent of those in prisons, but only about 15 per cent of the population. The group says Māori are bearing the brunt of the legacy of colonisation. One of the group went as far to say that if Māori knew the justice system they were going to get they would have never signed the Treaty of Waitangi.

This is where the group starts to lose me.

Our justice and legal system is based on centuries of development, from the setting of common law after the Norman Conquest in 1066, through the Magna Carta, to today. One-third of the world exists under these principles.

I find the suggestion that the worldwide convention of law and its application is somehow unsuitable to Māori to be vaguely insulting to Māori, who by the way have shown themselves to be very good at law if they want to be. Māori have a strong oral culture and they like a good kōrero on everything including innocence and guilt.

No, the problem with this justice system for Māori is fundamentally socio-economic and that’s where things have to change. If we’re going to have a conversation about our justice system, I don’t want to hear the blame being put on events of 177 years ago. This sort of blame-storming on the Treaty fixes nothing.

The real problem with our justice system is that it is adversarial. All the parties are adversaries, fighting each other, disagreeing with each other, trying to beat each other. And with adversaries then there will be participants who suffer adversely. No matter what the colour of their skin. If we can fix that then the whole world will beat a path to our door.

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