24 July 2009 - for immediate use
 
New Zealand Law Society submission to UN Human Rights Committee

The New Zealand Law Society's Human Rights Committee has made a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva, which will review New Zealand's observance of human rights on Saturday 25 July (NZ time) and draw up a list of issues that it will put to the New Zealand Government.

"This United Nations review is an important mechanism for monitoring human rights in New Zealand, and hopefully the Law Society's submission will assist this process and ultimately improve New Zealand's observance of human rights," says Dr Andrew Butler, Convener of the Law Society's Human Rights Committee.

The review relates to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the most important human rights treaties and the treaty on which the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is based. This is New Zealand's fifth periodic review under the ICCPR, the last having been undertaken in July 2001.

The Law Society's submission encourages the UN Committee to put particular questions to the New Zealand Government.

"There are a number of things that could be done to strengthen the protection of human rights under the Bill of Rights Act, without making it supreme law," Dr Butler says. "Some of these are noted in the Society's submission.

"The Government should also be responding formally and systematically to critical observations of New Zealand's human rights observance from domestic courts and from international human rights bodies.

"For example, in February 2007, the Supreme Court found, consistent with a significant body of overseas case law, that New Zealanders accused of supplying drugs are not fully afforded their right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The law could be readily changed to fix this, but instead the issue has been absorbed into a larger Law Commission review. Meanwhile, the human rights of some people before the courts are still not being fully respected.

"Also, New Zealand has ratified an optional protocol to the ICCPR that allows New Zealanders to make complaints to the UN Committee, but past Governments have made no commitment to respect the findings of that Committee. That is disappointing and could well explain why New Zealanders have not used that mechanism much in the 20 years it has been available.

"We would like to see this issue addressed and think the UN Committee's review provides a good opportunity for that to occur."

The UN Committee's review will focus on a report the New Zealand Government submitted to it last year. The Law Society used this report as the basis for its submission, which is one of just four submissions on New Zealand's report that the UN Committee currently acknowledges on its website.

(See http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/hrcs96.htm for access to New Zealand's report and to the Law Society's submission.)

ENDS

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