Sentencing Act needs time to 'settle'

The one-year-old Sentencing Act, which has been criticised by Appeal Court judges, should be given time to settle down, Criminal Bar Association president Robin Brown said today.

Judges sitting at the Wellington appeals of two rapists yesterday said legislation on the application of minimum non-parole periods was "inept" and like the "Hampton Court maze".

The judges suggested Parliament reconsider the Act.

Under the Act, judges can extend the one-third period that must be served of sentences longer than two years. But there are suggestions they are taking different approaches to conditions required for a non-parole period.

The two rapists' lawyers said their cases were not serious enough for non-parole periods.

The crown argued the public expected tough penalties for rapists and that judges should usually consider extending the one-third eligibility.

However, Mr Brown said singling out rape in the debate would wrongly place it above other violent crimes.

"While I can understand public abhorrence to that crime... I think it's got to be kept in context with other violent crimes which can have equally damaging effects and results on victims," he told National Radio.

Mr Brown said the new laws had shifted responsibility for sentencing from the courts to the Parole Board, but did not agree that Parliament needed to step in.

"The (Parole Board) should know what public expectation is. I don't think it really needs for Parliament to change the situation. We've got to give it time to settle down."

Mr Brown said that under the Act, sentences could now be longer, minimum non-parole periods could be set and there was the option of preventive detention for extreme offending.

A spokesman for Justice Minister Phil Goff said today the minister could not comment on the specific issue while the two rape sentence appeals were before the court.

"However, in serious cases, judges should be able to set minimum non-parole periods in excess of the statutory minimum periods for that crime and in the worst cases, judges should be able to make criminals serve the whole of their sentence.

"Under all sentencing laws, judges always make their own decision on the sentences to impose in relation to the specific case before them," the spokesman said.

Convenor of the Law Society's criminal law committee Philip Morgan said the minimum jail term for rape had been repealed and changed many times over the past 20 years and it would be a pity to start again.

"The new Sentencing Act and the new Parole Act allows people to be treated much more on a case-by-case basis and I think that really was the aim of the new legislation," he told National Radio.

National party spokesman on sentencing Tony Ryall said today parole eligibility after two-thirds of a sentence would be more appropriate to ensure serious violent and sexual offenders spent time behind bars.

The Court of Appeal yesterday reserved its judgement on the two rapists.

In one of the cases, a Huntly man was ordered to serve at least four years of an eight-year jail term for raping his sleeping sister-in-law. He had pleaded not guilty.

In the other, a Rotorua man was ordered to serve at least five years of a nine-year term after pleading guilty to sexual offences against his stepdaughter.

In both cases the men appealed their sentences.

- NZPA