Public Protection under New Zealand’s Civil Detention Regime: Preventive Detention, Extended Supervision Orders and Indeterminate Prolongation of Prison Sentences? Time for an Evaluation

Abstract

On 18 September 2012 the New Zealand Government introduced the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill to Parliament. The Bill establishes a new civil detention regime with new court orders to be called “public protection orders” and “prison detention orders”, directed at high-risk sexual or violent offenders that cannot be kept in prison any longer. In the light of these developments, this article evaluates the human rights compatibility of New Zealand’s public protection instruments. The sentence of preventive detention and the extended supervision order regime will be analysed under consideration of the domestic and international case law. Subsequently, the forthcoming public protection order regime will be presented, assessed under human rights aspects and compared with the existing protection instruments. The author argues that the sentence of preventive detention is inherently incompatible with the offenders’ rights, whereas the human right compatibility of an extended supervision order depends on the specific supervision conditions imposed. This article furthermore demonstrates that the new court orders established by the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill constitute justified limitations of the offenders’ rights. Finally, the author suggests that safeguards similar to those contained in the forthcoming public protection order regime should be applied in the context of preventive detention and would be capable of preventing unjustified infringements of the offenders’ rights.