Neil Sands
The ongoing rollout of new criminal offences risks overloading the courts and undermining efforts to deliver justice in a timely manner, TLANZ council member Samira Taghavi has warned MPs.
Addressing Parliament’s Justice Select Committee about government plans to crack down on boy racers, Taghavi said existing laws were capable of dealing with anti-social behaviour on the roads.
“If we keep adding new offenses every time a problem arises, then we’re really risking over-criminalising and clogging the courts,” she said.
“The current government is very focused on getting rid of the backlog [of court cases] and creating all these new offences is going to have an opposite effect. So, we need to be very careful about that.”
The Anti-Social Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill creates a new offence of participating in a “frightening or intimidatory convoy” and has tough penalties for drivers who fail to leave an area when directed to by police.
It also includes mandatory vehicle destruction or forfeiture for drivers convicted of participating in street racing or fleeing police.
Vehicle owners who fail to identify offending drivers will also face the confiscation and destruction of their cars.
Taghavi, who is the convenor of TLANZ’s Public & Administrative Law Committee, a member of the TLANZ Criminal Law Committee and a member of the TLANZ Council said the proposed legislation’s aim of improving road safety was understandable
But she said there were legal concerns, outlined in a TLANZ submission, about the measures it contains.
“We’re not saying that anti-social behaviour isn’t a problem. We’re saying that the tools already exist and the solution is to use them properly,” she said.
“[The answer is] not to keep creating new, overlapping offences and complicating things, especially removing discretion from judges. You need to be very careful with that.
“So, some parts of the bill really go too far. For example, the mandatory vehicle destruction, predictive police closure [of roads], and the power of forced identification.”
‘Stupid kids’
Taghavi did not specify what other new offences she was concerned about, beyond those contained in the boy racer bill, but there have been a string of new crimes created under the government’s law-and-order agenda.
They include new offences relating to coward punches, protests outside residential homes, wearing gang patches, stalking, and assaulting first responders, as well as legislation imposing sentencing guidelines on the judiciary.
Unlike existing laws, the proposed boy racer legislation will not require three offences before mandatory seizure and/or destruction kicks in.
Taghavi said this could result in innocent third parties, such as parents, being penalised.
“Say, you have a 19-year-old. You’re at home and you’re asleep, then they take the car and go and do whatever is stupid,” she said.
“You’re the mother, you’ve done everything you could in your capacity, but you’re the one who ends up losing the car. This is what we see quite often. It’s the parents…. who end up suffering the consequences with vehicles that they rely on for driving, because of the stupidity of their kids.”
The government has vowed to cut delays in the court system, assigning extra funds to address the problem in this year’s Budget, and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told LawNews last month that he would deal with any additional pressures it put on the courts.
“Our primary focus is to reduce the number of victims, particularly of violent and sexual offending… A stronger, clearer consequences regime is important… that does put more pressure on the courts but, at the same time, we’re doing everything we can to look at that broader issue of timeliness.”
He cited an increase in the number of High Court judges, capital expenditure on new courthouses, investment in audio-visual technology and a ‘transformational’ program to digitise court documentation.
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