5.
Keith Locke
(Green) to the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service: What steps is she taking to review the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s role in issuing security risk certificates following her reported statement that the security provisions of the Immigration Act will be reviewed after the Zaoui case?
Rt Hon Helen Clark
(Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service): As I have said on a number of occasions, when the Zaoui case is completed, whatever the outcome, the Government will be looking at whether the law worked as intended. No review will take place until the case has run its course.
Keith Locke
: Does the Security Intelligence Service take into account people’s rights — such as their right to criticise an oppressive Government, such as that in Algeria — when deciding to issue a security risk certificate; if so, why is the Government appealing a High Court decision that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security must take into account human rights when reviewing a security risk certificate?
Rt Hon Helen Clark
: When the Director of Security takes it on his own judgment to issue the certificate, he has in mind what might be a danger to the security of New Zealand. It is the Crown’s submission to the court that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security does not take into account the human rights issues, because that is done by the Minister of Immigration when she considers the matter, if the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security upholds the security risk certificate.
Keith Locke
: How can the Minister of Immigration possibly adequately take into account Mr Zaoui’s human rights in the statutory maximum of 3 days that she has after the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security makes his determination, when, unlike the inspector-general, she will not have heard all the evidence, heard the witnesses, been part of all the cross-examination, or studied the matter over several months? It is impossible, surely?
Rt Hon Helen Clark
: No, I do not agree with that. The Minister of Immigration is working on what the human rights issues might be. I understand she will be asking Mr Zaoui’s counsel for any matters they might like to draw to her attention in that respect, so that if the certificate is upheld, and she has to act within the 3 days, she will be well prepared to make a decision one way or the other.
Keith Locke
: Does the Minister agree that it is inhuman that Mr Zaoui has now been imprisoned for over 14 months, and why does not the Government use the legal provisions available to it either to free him or to move him to a more relaxed form of detention, such as the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre?
Rt Hon Helen Clark
: No, I do not accept that. Mr Zaoui came here on a false passport, and he is a person of security concern to the Government’s security adviser, which is the Security Intelligence Service. It has used its judgment to issue a certificate. There is a process to be gone through. The Government has looked very carefully at the interplay between the Immigration Act and other Acts of Parliament, and it is the Government’s view that he is required to be detained in a penal institution.