“Due process” only way to change SFO powers - Collins

The only way the powers of the Serious Fraud Office can be changed is if “due process” is followed, justice minister Judith Collins has told Parliament during the Search and Surveillance Bll debate.

“I don’t think it is right for me to rein in the powers of the SFO without some serious debate in public and in the select committee,” Ms Collins said during the late night debate.

Two parts were passed on Tuesday night and the third reading, expected to take place soon, will see the bill in law.

Part three of the bill, which deals with production and examination orders and directly relates to the Serious Fraud Office’s ability to demand documents from media organisations without a warrant was passed by one vote.  Labour’s David Parker pushed Ms Collins on the SFO’s  “unlimited powers" under part four.

Mr Parker questioned what he termed the stubborn refusal by the government to bring the SFO into line with the processes that have to be followed by every other state agency before they exercise some of the bill's intrusive powers.

Ms Collins said the SFO had never been included in the bill, which had been “hanging around” since 2007, and she was not prepared to bring the SFO into the legislation at “this late stage”.

While Ms Collins acknowledged Mr Parker had written to former justice minister Simon Power, about standardising the powers of the SFO with the same powers that apply to the police, she said Mr Parker should have “followed it up”.

“I actually think process is relatively important on things like this. The SFO has never been a part of the bill and therefore the public have never been asked to submit on whether or not the SFO should be under this regime or whether or not it should remain with the powers it has had since 1990,” she said.

A resolute Ms Collins said she was not prepared to overnight, or “even over a month,” change the powers of the SFO without it having first gone to a select committee.

“We have discussed what we should do with the SFO over the powers; we have heard allegations made around alleged mis-use of the powers. The only example given to me was when the SFO served production orders on the National Business Review once last year.

"Just on that one issue I don’t think we should be completely changing a law that has been in place in 1990 and which, by the way, was brought in by the then Labour government to deal exactly with the issue of financial crime.”

The bill is expected to be passed before Parliament rises on April 5.