Mark Dalder
Marc Daalder is a Wellington-based senior political reporter covering Covid-19, Climate Change, Energy, Primary Industry, Technology and the Far Right. Twitter: @marcdaalder.
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Radicals
The Royal Commission recommended rewriting the hate crime law in December 2020, but it took more than a year for authorities to report to the Minister.
Last year, the government made a controversial proposal to change the hate speech law, but related reforms to hate the criminal law were left on the roadside.
For more than a year after the Royal Investigation Commission on the March 15 terrorist attack first recommended an update to the hate crime law, authorities did not advise the minister on the project. Since the Royal Commission issued the report, then Minister of Justice Kris Faafoi was first asked by a request for official information law to provide all advice from officials involved in hate crime reform. The briefing said it did not come until January 2022.
Since then, more advice has been provided, but it has been withheld under the provisions of the Official Information Law, which protects the policies still under development.
Golliz Ghahraman, a justice spokesman for the Greens, said the delay was “disappointing.”
“The community is surprised and disappointed, especially when it comes to hate crime efforts. This change, unlike the hate speech recommendations, is actually very basic and makes New Zealand a reality. Has very widespread support throughout the sector, including police. “
A January 2022 briefing shows that Justice ministry officials had previously considered and rejected changes to hate criminal law.
“When the issue of hatred-motivated crimes was raised in the past, Justice Ministry officials felt that the current system, which treats hatred motivations as part of sentencing, was a better approach than certain crimes. Was there. [Royal Commission] The Ministry of Justice recommends revisiting this issue. ”
The ministry argues that this reluctance does not signal a delay in hate crime reform. The ministry’s question about the year’s delay wasn’t answered for more than a week, but Brendan Gauge, the ministry’s general manager for criminal justice issues, issued a statement to the newsroom late Tuesday.
“The Ministry of Justice’s work plan will be decided by the Minister in consultation with the Ministry,” he said. “The views of officials have not affected the time frame associated with this work.”
Work on the hate crime reform program began in late 2021, according to Gauge, but no further concreteness was provided.
“I think that’s what the officials said [in the briefing] Our judicial system does not have a current approach to hating crime, which is positively misleading. They don’t exist. “
“It is possible to record in the memo of the judgment to the judge that there was hatred as an aggravating factor for committing a normal crime, but it is aggressive because there is no current system. Misunderstood the former minister. I called out about it. “
The news was personalized to Andrew Little about the delays in hate speech and hate crime reform by an advisory group established in May to monitor the government’s progress in implementing the Royal Commission’s recommendations. After reporting that he has expressed his concerns in a targeted and recurring manner. Few ministers are responsible for implementing the Commission’s recommendations, but the new Minister of Justice, Kiri Alan, is responsible for hate speech and hate crime reform.
Alain refused to comment on this story.
The Royal Commission said New Zealand should have alternatives motivated by certain hatreds to replace assault, intimidation and other crimes. Under current law, a person who commits a racist or homosexual assault is charged with assault, but the motive for hatred can be considered during the judgment.
The Commission’s recommendations align New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and anyone who commits a racist assault may be prosecuted for aggravated racist assault.
“We are not talking about creating new crimes in their own right. We are saying that if you commit a criminal act, that is, you are already a criminal, but based on hatred. It’s about having a motivation and recording it, “Ghahraman said. ..
“The minimum that a community left out of a society affected by hatred could have expected to respond to Christchurch’s terrorist attacks themselves.”