Retired judge slams ‘acquiescent’ party

Press, 17 November 1977, Page 10

Retired judge slams ‘acquiescent’ party

PA Dunedin. A retired judge of the Supreme Court has criticised an “acquiescent National majority” for refusing to refer the Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill to a Parliamentary select committee.

In an address to the Otago branch of the New Zealand Legal Asssociation in Dunedin, Mr Justice Wilson said the defeat of an Opposition motion to refer the bill was a ‘‘sorry example of subservience to the executive.”

“Parliamentary control of the executive is almost entirely lost. As Lord Devlin pointed out some years ago with Great Britain. Instead of Parliament controlling the executive, the reverse is now the case. This is equally true in New Zealand. “We are all aware of the take-over of public companies by individuals or other companies. Very few of us have noticed the equally effective take-over of the Parliament by the executive.” he said. Mr Minogue’s public criticism of some of the bill’s provisions (including the proposal to vest in the Minister the power to issue interception warrants) “drew down on him the wrath of the Prime Minister who was the Minister concerned. And in the event he did not challenge this provision during th. second sitting.”

But more serious than this were the ways in which the bill was passed into law and the National Party members’ willingness to give the Minister the control of powers to viola*e a citizen’s right to privacy without strong and effective safeguards against abuse by him, he said.

“I am one of those who believe that the object of the bill was a good one. “I accept that this kind of spying has been necessary in the public interest and will be necessary. But since it involves the violations of people’s rights, of privacy by the agents of the executive, Parliament had a duty to the electors to ensure by every possible means that it would not be abused. “It touched our basic freedoms more fundamentally than any other piece of legislation that I can recall. Because an innocent person could have no redress from the court. Parliament’s duty was plain to fully investigate the need for the measure and the best protection against abuse and to give ail interested persons an opportunity to make submissions regarding these matters, he said. “The normal way in which this is done is to refer a bill to a select committee of the House. But the executive, through the Prime Minister, refused to do this. An Opposition motion to refer it was defeated by an acquiescent National majority, thereby giving a sorry example of subservience to the executive. “The Prime Minister’s reason for not referring the bill was that to do so would simply open the door to the lunatic fringe. Indeed he invited people to make submissions to him. Of course what he did with the submissions he did receive was his own business. He was under no obligation to reveal them to anyone.

“Well I joined the lunatic fringe by accepting his invitation. But I might as well have saved my time because I have nothing to

show that what 1 wrote was ever considered.” Mr Wilson said. “The safeguards against abuse of the power vested in the Minister to issue interception warrants were: That the warrants could be issued only on the recommendation of the director of the service: ■ The requirements of an annual report to Parliament giving the numbers of warrants issued during the year; The knowledge that the Minister’s successor in office would be able to scrutinise the files and discover and report to Parliament any abuse for which the Minister was responsible. “These claims disclose a degree of naivete of which I did not believe the Prime Minister capable. “The weilder of the power to issue warrants should ideally be gifted with objectivity, tolerance and — as the present director, Mr P. L. Molineaux so admirably put it — compassion. A combination of talents such as these in any one man will be very rare and I do not think that even Mr Muldoon’s most, ardent admirer would claim that he has displayed the last three, Mr Wilson said. “There is another very important matter. The public, deprived of their constitutional right of protection from the courts, are entitled to be assured that warrants will not be used for political purposes, to spy on political opponents of the party in power. And while " the power is vested in the hands of one political party it is difficult to have confidence that it will not be misused in this way.”