Justice Minister Phil Goff says no new evidence has emerged to justify reconsideration of the Peter Ellis case.
Ellis, freed in 2000, has maintained his innocence in the Christchurch Civic Creche child abuse case.
Now well-known New Zealanders are lending their signature for a top-level inquiry into his conviction.
National MPs Don Brash
and Katherine Rich began a petition calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry. They aim to gather signatures from about 100 prominent New Zealanders.
Mr Goff said yesterday that he was unconvinced of a good reason for such an inquiry.
"I keep and must keep an open mind on the question of the safety of the conviction," he said.
"Before I can refer any matter back to the court, there has to be new evidence not yet considered by the judicial system.
"So far the Peter Ellis case has been before a jury, who have determined unanimously that he was guilty.
"It has been twice to the Court of Appeal, where seven separate Court of Appeal judges have said there was no miscarriage of justice."
It had also been to a ministerial inquiry, he said.
Anyone who had concerns could put forward an application for a Royal Prerogative of Mercy, he said.
That would succeed if there was new evidence.
"So far I have received no such application and no such indication of new evidence."
Labour backbenchers David Parker, Georgina Beyer and Russell Fairbrother are understood to want to sign the petition.
But it was unlikely permission for them to do so would be granted by caucus whip David Benson-Pope, the Dominion Post newspaper reported yesterday.
Mr Goff said individual members of Parliament would make their own judgment on these matters.
Among the 75 reported to have signed the petition are former prime ministers David Lange and Mike Moore, Queen's Counsels Nigel Hampton and Stuart Grieve, law professors John Burrows, John Prebble, and Mark Henaghan, writers Keri Hulme, Maurice Gee and Witi Ihimaera, Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner and media personalities including Listener editor Finlay Macdonald, columnists Chris Trotter and Frank Haden, Metro founder Warwick Roger and National Business Review publisher Barry Colman.
The petition was prompted by Dunedin writer Lynley Hood's book A City Possessed.
- NZPA
