Hone Harawira - Legal Services Amend. Bill Speech

15 March 2006

LEGAL SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

HoneHarawira, Te Tai Tokerau

Tuesday 14 March 2006

Foryears, Maori have had to go to Court, without decent legalrepresentation, and often without legal aid. The LegalServices Amendment Bill says it will change that, by makingit possible for another 435,000 people to get legal aid,many of whom undoubtedly will be Maori.

And the governmentis to be commended for their efforts in this regard.

Thetragedy of course, is how many Maori actually wind up inCourt in the first place.

We already know that Maori getarrested, prosecuted, convicted, and jailed at much higherrates than non-Maori, confirming last week s report on HumanRights Practices in New Zealand which noted a:

"continuingpattern of disproportionate numbers of Maori on unemploymentand welfare rolls, in prison, among school dropouts, andinfant mortality statistics".

In the same week, theMinistry of Justice also released their Prison Forecast,which projected that by 2010, Maori will be the mostimprisoned people per capita in the world.

Now there s astatistic that bears repeating - by 2010, Maori will be themost imprisoned people per capita in the world.

So yes, MrSpeaker, like it or not, the way things are going, Maori aregoing to need Legal Aid like never before. So when theMaori Party looks at this Legal Services Amendment Bill, weask the questions do so with one focus - how will this Billchange things for Maori?

Well, sad to say, only sevensubmissions were received, four heard, and the whole SelectCommittee process was over in less than a day - hardly agood look for a government promoting access tojustice.

The changes in this Bill are intended to increasethe number of legal aid grants, and the number of people whocan get legal aid, and thereby give people far better accessto justice than before.

That principle is important,because the Maori Party does not share the view of otherparties in this house who stupidly think that filling up thejails is the measure of the success of the justicesystem.

Mr Speaker, it is our deepest wish to reduce thenumber of Maori who are arrested, convicted and imprisoned. We want to enhance the mana of all people, by promoting asystem based more on justice that heals than justice thathammers.

Sure - punishment must be a part of justice - noquestion. But what is the value of a system that punishesbut does not change the offender, except to make him worse?What is the point of a system that actually encouragesoffenders to be more devious, more brutal, and to be lesscaring, the next time they offend?

Folks - it s not aboutgetting even, it s about getting justice. It s about whanau.The whanau of the victim, and the whanau of the offender.Punishing one without properly addressing the other servesno-one. It s about taking the next generations intoaccount.

But every time I think of that statistic - thatby 2010, Maori will be the most imprisoned people per capitain the world, I know that this Bill will not make any realchange at all. Mr Speaker, the Maori Party supports anygenuine attempt to help people get access to justice, butthis Bill is really just tweaking a system that isintrinsically unsound.

It would be great if we could saythat this Bill could turn around that damning statisticabout Maori being the most imprisoned people in the world by2010 but I suspect that you, me, and everyone else in thisHouse knows it ain t going to happen

Mr Speaker, improvingthe administration and management of legal aid is a step inthe right direction, but even with the best intentions, thelawyers you get through Legal Aid, are mainly just the legalbunnies - the new lawyers. Their enthusiasm does notcompensate for their lack of experience.

Experiencedlawyers refuse legal aid cases, because there isn t anymoney in it, which means that in the normal run of things,defendants on legal aid get less value than people with abucket load of money - and how surprising that isn t.

MrSpeaker, every Maori in this House has whanau who have endedup in court with lawyers whose aim seems to be to get theirLegal Aid cases out of the way as soon as they can - oftenby persuading their clients to plead guilty. And I knowpeople who have pleaded guilty because they didn t even knowthey can get Legal Aid in the first place; and I also knowpeople who have pleaded guilty because their lawyers toldthem it was the best thing to do. How do I knowthis?

Because Mr Speaker, I have been to court anddefended myself many times, and during that time I have seenthe poor, the Maori, and their Pacific cousins, beingtreated like scum by those who have been charged withhelping them. I have seen people look despairingly at theirlawyers in the courtroom to talk to them, and I have seenthose Legal Aid lawyers simply drone on like their clientsweren t even in the room.

I have seen people with thedesperate look of the innocent, turn their heads to thefloor when they finally realised that their Legal Aidlawyers were more interested in their own performance thanin the plight of their clients.

Mr Speaker, I have seenpeople lose their freedom because their bumbling, and oftenuncaring Legal Aid lawyers were just too lazy to do theirjobs properly.

Mr Speaker, our criminal law is based onthe private property values of British and Western history,and even this Bill suggests that "the definition of anapplicant s income is subject to the resources of a spouseor partner, of parents and resources relating to Maoriland".

The Maori Party rejects the notion that land handeddown through collective whakapapa, should be divided forconsideration of an individual's income. It is a racistnotion that all decent citizens should be appalled at.

Ialso see that the Bill aims to determine legal aid based onthe likelihood of somebody going to jail. Now that s got tobe a little suspect. Does that mean that the Legal ServicesAgency will be taking over the role of judge and jury andmaking its decisions BEFORE somebody even enters a plea? Or is this some screwy notion to deny legal aid to people"who may go to jail", as if that can be determined beforepleas are entered.

I also note that surveys will be usedto monitor progress in the legal aid system. That salright but the real measure is not the administration, butreducing re-offending, and improving the situation for thosewho need it most.

And of course, one of the major areas ofcontention, and indeed one of the birthrights of the MaoriParty, the Foreshore and Seabed Act actually denies Maoriaccess to Legal Aid, and this Bill does nothing to changethat.

This, Mr Speaker, is a criminal denial of the rightsof a major sector of our community. No other group in ournation ... not the unions, not the employers, not our Asiancousins, not our Pacific relations, and certainly not ourPakeha whanaunga ... no other group in our nation EXCEPTMAORI, are denied access to Legal Aid - and I repeat, noother group in our nation EXCEPT MAORI, are denied access toLegal Aid.

How can we in this House, we who represent whatis supposed to be an enlightened and educated society, wewho talk about fairness and justice for all, evencontemplate an environment where a major sector is deniedthe rights that generations fought for over so manycenturies?

Indeed, how can we accept such an abuse of apeople s human rights, and move so glibly by?

These arecritical issues which this House must address, at thislevel, and at every other level in society.

Mr Speaker,our courts are mono-cultural, and their language andprocedures deny Maori access to justice. If we are seriousabout real access, then one of the key issues we need toaddress is that of cultural bias.

In 1988, Moana Jacksonof the Wellington Maori Legal Service, reported that Maoricultural values were not reflected in criminal law.

Thatwas confirmed when in 1992, Gina Rudland, President of theMaori Law Society, told the Minister of Justice, that "whatis needed is a parallel system that allows justice to beachieved for Maori by Maori."

And in 1993, Aroha Terrysuggested marae trials for child abuse offending. All ofthese suggest we should explore different justice systems,and that we genuinely take up the idea of Maori practices,and let s face it - we can hardly do worse than what we gotnow.

For more than 1000 years Maori have had their ownjustice system; one based on concepts of Tapu and Noa, andwhich recognises peoples responsibility to the widercommunity, and the community s responsibility for itsmembers.

The Pacific practice of ifoga is similar to maraejustice. The Navaho people of Great Turtle Island havetheir own justice system which they share with the state,but based on Navaho philosophy and procedure.

And over theTasman, Aboriginal Courts and systems are being used to tryto reduce their arrest, conviction, and prisonstatistics.

Indigenous people may not have all theanswers, but current systems obviously aren t working - notfor indigenous people, nor for society at large.

This Billis a stop-gap. An admirable stopgap, but a stopgapnonetheless.

The Maori Party opposes this Bill becausewhile it purports to address the issue of access tojustice:

- it accepts the ridiculous"jail-em-at-all-costs" thinking which has led to thespiralling arrest, conviction and imprisonment rates thathave over-run our justice system

- it does not addressthe very real need to reduce the reasons behind thefundamental problems in our society,

- and because itdeals with individual rights while continuing to deny Maoritheir collective whanau, hapu and iwi rights and in facttheir human right to the same measure of justice enjoyed byall other citizens inAotearoa.

ENDS

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