Clash on proof of innocence

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 8

Clash on proof of innocence

A provision in the Customs Act could be difficult to reconcile with the proposed Bill of Rights, said the Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, yesterday. 1 Mr Palmer said the act contained a "reverse onus” provision which ‘ meant that an accused person had to prove his innocence. Article 17 (1) (b) of the proposed bill says that “everyone charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.” Mr Palmer said that similar provisions could probably be found in a number of other New

Zealand laws. An immediate task, once the bill was passed, would be to examine all present legislation and clean up aspects which violated the fundamental rights of the bill. This legislative clean-up would be one of the most important effects of the bill, but not all reverse onus clauses would necessarily be struck out, he said. Article 3 of the bill said that where a law was designed to cure a clear social ill, that law could interfere to some extent with the freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, Mr Palmer said.