Licence Loss As Criminal Penalty

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32005, 4 June 1969, Page 28

Licence Loss As Criminal Penalty

<Kev> Zealand Pr«» Association) WELLINGTON, June 3. All those involved in an offence other than a driving offence which has been facilitated by the use of a car may have their driving licences cancelled by a court under a provision in the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill.

Under existing law only the driver of the car may have his licence cancelled.

This provision would be heartily welcomed by the courts and approved by the public, the Minister of Justice (Mr Hanan) said in Parliament this afternoon.

The bill was given a second reading today. It was introduced in Parliament last year, and was considered by the Statutes Revision Committee during the Parliamentary recess. The bill is an ancillary of the Mental Health Bill, which was given a second reading in Parliament last week. Many of the provisions for the psychiatric assessment and care of persons appearing before the court have now been transferred to the Criminal Justice Bill from the Mental Health Bill. FITNESS TO PLEAD

Under the bill the determining of the mental fitness of a defendant to be answerable to a charge will be postponed until the opening of the case for the defence. At present the defendant’s fitness for trial is determined when the case opens. The provision was a compromise between the need to avoid prejudicing an insane defendant who might later recover sufficiently to be tried and the desirability of freeing an innocent defendant as soon as possible, Mr Hanan said.

The decision on the issue of fitness for trial when the trial is in the Supreme Court will be made by the judge instead of by the jury.

The issue was a technical •ne which the jury was not competent to try, said Mr Hanan. Persons found unfit for trial or acquitted on account •f insanity could no longer be committed to prison. “It is an inappropriate place for a person who is either legally not guilty of any offence or so insane that it is not just to try him,” said Mr Hanan. “All courts are given the power to acquit on account of insanity and can order a defendant’s detention to a mental hospital as an ordinary patient rather than as a special category patient,” he said. The courts will also have the power to order a defendant’s immediate discharge if the offence is not serious, and if the defendant recovers sufficiently from his insanity to make detention unnecessary. NAME SUPPRESSION

Dealing with the suppression of names by the Court, Mr Hanan said cases had been reported where on a conviction a defendant had intimated that he intended to appeal and had applied for interim suppression of his name until after the hearing

of the appeal. Once the applications had been granted the appeals had not been proceeded with. A new provision ensured that a defendant could not in this way obtain permanent protection from publicity. The order for suppression would lapse if an appeal was not made, he said. The existing provision under the Mental Health Act which gave the court authority to order the temporary detention of a defendant in a mental hospital to observe his mental condition pending his trial, put a burden on mental hospitals, Mr Hanan said. Provision had now been made for the defendant to be released on bail and to undergo psychiatric examination, or to be remanded to prison for the examination. If medical evidence showed that he needed further observation the court could then detain him in hospital for a month.

The bill gives the right of appeal in special cases when a person has been acquitted

on account of insanity. The defendant, can appeal where the defence raised was not insanity but something similar, and the jury acquits on the grounds of insanity. He can also appeal where there was an additional ground of defence which would have entitled the defendant to outright acquittal had it succeeded. BILL NOT OPPOSED

The Opposition did not oppose the bill. Dr A. M. Finlay (Lab., Waitakere) said that more and more criminal activity was motorised, and the inability to drive a car would be keenly felt “The court should, therefore, be given more power or greater flexibility in taking away licences of those involved in criminal activities.” As a measure short of imprisonment, it was welcome, he said.