Compo pledge to victims over convicts' payouts

The government has given an assurance that crime victims will be able to claim compensation awarded to prisoners and says it will be more difficult in future for cases to succeed.

Its promise followed a Court of Appeal ruling upholding an order to pay $130,000 to five inmates held illegally in solitary confinement. A spokesman for Corrections Minister Damien O'Connor said the Government was considering an appeal.

"The solution of simply denying compensation to inmates, the Government's first and preferred option, would be contrary to New Zealand's international obligations and contrary to the practice in other Western democracies," Justice Minister Mark Burton said.

Tony Ellis, the lawyer acting on behalf of the inmates, said the Government's ongoing claim it would prefer to ignore international obligations and deny compensation to abused inmates was disgraceful.

"In the same day when the British House of Lords has just come down with a human rights-friendly and advanced decision on torture and ill-treatment ... we get a justice minister saying what he's said and it's a disgrace," Mr Ellis said.

Seven judges from Britain's highest court ruled yesterday that intelligence extracted by torture is not admissible in any British court.

While fighting the original finding, the Government moved to introduce the Prisoners and Victims' Claims Act, which makes it more difficult for inmates to claim compensation and enables victims to petition the courts to transfer the money to them in the form of reparation. The Act is retrospective, which means any victims of the five inmates at the centre of the Court of Appeal case can seek the compensation.

Mr Ellis argues the Act introduced by the Government is discriminatory and plans to challenge it before the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

- Ruth Berry, NZPA