Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says the bill amendment is necessary to allow Corrections to maintain public safety. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The government has urgently changed the law so that 27 of the highest-risk sexual and violent offenders can still be subject to their parole conditions.
The Parole Amendment Act has passed under urgency on Thursday - the last sitting day of Parliament. It has been kept under cover until today so that the risk to public safety could be mitigated.
It follows a High Court decision on 27 June that found an extended supervision order (ESO) could not require a high-risk offender to reside with their rehabilitation/reintegration programme provider.
An ESO is for those who have finished their sentence and must be released, but have a history of serious sexual or violent offending and are a real risk of reoffending.
"That determination by the High Court creates a public safety risk as approximately 27 of the highest risk offenders managed by the Department of Corrections in the community are affected by the determination," the background information for the bill says.
"Those offenders reside primarily at six different locations and are subject to both residential and programme conditions that are delivered by the same provider. The key risk is that for those ESO offenders the programme conditions will no longer be enforceable."
The bill, which applies retrospectively from midnight Wednesday night, simply enables an ESO condition requiring the offender to reside with their programme provider.
It also requires the conditions to be reviewed every two years so that ESO offenders "are not managed more restrictively than necessary".
The bill also validates any programme condition that was potentially made invalid by the High Court decision.
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis, speaking at the bill's first reading on Thursday morning, said the bill was necessary to allow Corrections to maintain public safety.
"It is critical that we address the issues raised by the High Court decision as soon as possible," he said, without elaborating on further details of the court ruling.
He said the ruling had thrown a spanner into the long-standing practice of a single provider delivering reintegration, rehabilitation and a residence for ESO offenders.
"It ensures these offenders have wrap-around support and supervision during their reintegration in a stable and structured environment.
"We need to pass this bill to urgently ensure that Corrections can continue to enforce these high-risk offenders' programme conditions despite the June judgment, and can continue to impose these conditions in the future to support the reintegration of these offenders and to keep the public safe."
Davis said Attorney-General David Parker found the bill to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act, as was parts of the ESO regime when it was first introduced in 2004.
"Because public safety is paramount, these previous legislative amendments were still deemed necessary and passed into law by Parliament. Similarly, I consider that the changes in the bill are justified on public safety grounds and are in keeping with Parliament's original policy intent.
"BORA issues can be dealt with in a thoughtful way through the Government's response to the Law Commission's substantive review of post-sentence orders - which is due to be completed in late 2024."
National and Act are supporting the bill, but the Greens opposed it, calling it poor law-making given the BORA issues and because it has been more than two months since the court ruling.
- This story was first published by the New Zealand Herald.