Judge's Zaoui comments taken out of context, says PM

3.00pm

The Government had to balance issues of national security with human rights issues when weighing up cases like that of asylum-seeker Ahmed Zaoui, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today.

Green MP Keith Locke said yesterday Security Intelligence Service inspector-general Laurie Greig had shown prejudice against Mr Zaoui and should be removed from deciding whether he was a security risk.

Justice Greig is to decide whether an SIS certificate declaring Mr Zaoui to be a security risk is valid.

In an interview he gave to the Listener magazine, Justice Greig appeared to suggest that if left up to him, Mr Zaoui would be on the next plane out of New Zealand.

Once Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel receives Justice Greig's decision, she has three days to decide whether Mr Zaoui, a former Algerian politician, should be removed from the country, despite winning refugee status.

Justice Greig said in the Listener interview that it would finally be up to Ms Dalziel whether Zaoui stayed.

"I don't bind her to say 'out'. Because she's got three days to decide. If that wasn't the case, then she wouldn't have a decision. I'd be making my decision and it would be 'outski' on the next plane," he said.

Mr Locke said the already flawed secret process had been seriously compromised by Justice Greig's comments during the interview.

Helen Clark was questioned today on TVNZ's Breakfast News about changing the Immigration Act 1998 that required Mr Zaoui to be in prison while the process was being worked through.

Justice Greig's interim decision is to be challenged in the High Court on December 1.

The Prime Minister said she was "always open" to reviewing law but could not do so in the middle of a case.

She said this was the first security risk certificate to be issued so the Government had not up until now seen how the law was operating.

"But I'd also make the point that in Government you sometimes have the unpleasant duty of trying to balance issues of national security with issues of civil liberties and how you tread that line is a very fine line".

If the New Zealand Government was thought to have lax borders and lax security, it would be answerable to the public and so it had to strike a balance.

Changes made on the basis of a single case would make "bad law".

Justice Greig was looking at security risk but Ms Dalziel had said she would be taking human rights issues into account when considering Mr Zaoui's case, Miss Clark said.

If Justice Greig upheld the security risk certificate, then Mr Zaoui's defence had three days to make an appeal to a higher court "and they would almost certainly exercise that appeal".

The comment about Mr Zaoui being "outski" on the next plane had been taken out of context, Helen Clark said.

There was "quite a lengthy process" and quite a "robust" legal process to go through.

"There are issues before the High Court and the High Court's decision will be awaited with interest."

Justice Greig said today he didn't want to talk about the article or his handling of the Zaoui case.

Listener journalist Gordon Campbell, who interviewed Justice Greig, stood by his article and said he had not ambushed or misreported the retired judge.

"He wasn't quoted out of context," Campbell told National Radio.

The "outski" comment had been overemphasised as implying Justice Greig had made up his mind.

Instead he was explaining that the final decision on whether Zaoui stayed in New Zealand was up to Ms Dalziel.

Campbell said that comment and others in the article about refugees were still "provocative."

Campbell said he had wanted Justice Greig to explain the process of balancing an individual's rights against the wide public interest of national security work.

Justice Greig had initially said he could not talk about the Zaoui case, but volunteered views on it immediately.

"There was no prodding or pushing involved."

Campbell said Justice Greig had appeared to be "non-plussed" and "pole-axed" when asked simple questions.

- NZPA