The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill has been amended to include a new subsection (4) in the new Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. This affirms that Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints relating to assault on a child where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.
The new section 59 will therefore read:
59 Parental control
(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of —
(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another 10 person; or
(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or
(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a child in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child, where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.
Parliament also agreed to the following new clause to the Bill, which will require the Ministry of Social Development to monitor the effects of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act and report to the Minister on those effects after the Act has been in force for two years. The Minister will be required to present the report to the Parliament:
6 Chief executive to monitor effects of this Act
(1) The chief executive must, in accordance with this section, monitor, and advise the Minister on, the effects of this Act, including the extent to which this Act is achieving its purpose as set out in section 3 of this Act, and of any additional impacts.
(2) As soon as practicable after the expiry of the period of 2 years after the date of the commencement of this Act, the chief executive must---
(a) review the available data and any trends indicated by that data about the matters referred to in subsection (1); and
(b) report the chief executive's findings to the Minister.
(3) As soon as practicable after receiving the report under subsection (2), the Minister must present a copy of that report to the House of Representatives.
(4) In this section, chief executive and Minister have the same meanings as in section 2(1) of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act 1989.
