Date of Royal Assent 1 November 1961 | Date commenced 1 January 1962 | |
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The Crimes Act 1961 is an Act of the Parliament of New Zealand that forms a leading part of the criminal law in New Zealand. It repeals the Crimes Act 1908, itself a successor of the Criminal Code Act 1893, and partially codifies the criminal law in New Zealand. Most crimes in New Zealand are created by the Crimes Act, but some are created elsewhere. All common law offences are abolished by section 9, as are all offences against Acts of the British Parliaments, but section 20 saves the old common law defences where they are not specifically altered.
Contents
- Punishments Part 2
- Matters of justification or excuse Part 3
- Crimes against public order Part 5
- Crimes affecting the administration of law and justice Part 6
- Crimes against religion morality and public welfare Part 7
- Crimes against the person Part 8
- References
The Act is administered by the Ministry of Justice.
Punishments (Part 2)
Section 14 of the Crimes Act 1961 allowed death sentences. However, due to growing general public opposition to the death penalty, reformist New Zealand National Party Minister of Justice Ralph Hanan and other National MPs exercised a conscience vote and voted with the abolitionist New Zealand Labour Party to forbid judges passing sentence of death other than in cases of treason. That was the functional abolition in New Zealand, with no one executed after this date. In 1989, the death penalty was formally abolished by the Fourth Labour Government.
Matters of justification or excuse (Part 3)
Includes infancy, insanity, compulsion, ignorance of law, sentence or process, arrest, use of force, breach of the peace, defence against assault, defence of property, peaceable entry, powers of discipline, surgical procedures, and other general provisions.
Sections 21 and 22 establish the defence of infancy. Children aged under 10 years old are assumed incapable of committing a crime and cannot be charged with any crime. Children aged between 10 and 13 years inclusive have the rebuttable presumption of incapacity to commit a crime; they cannot be charged unless the prosecution can prove the child knew what they were doing was a criminal offence.
Sections 50 and 169 dealt with the provocation defence which mitigated fatal assaults to the lesser charge and penalty due to manslaughter, rather than murder. It was abolished through multipartisan consent in 2009, with the exception of the ACT New Zealand party.
The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 abolished Section 59 of the Crimes Act, which had previously allowed parental corporal punishment of children, despite opposition from religious social conservatives and others.
Crimes against public order (Part 5)
Includes treason and other crimes against the Queen and the State; offence of oath to commit offence; unlawful assemblies, riots, and breaches of the peace; piracy; slave dealing; participation in criminal gang; and smuggling and trafficking in people.
Crimes affecting the administration of law and justice (Part 6)
Includes bribery and corruption; contravention of statute; misleading justice; and escapes and rescues
Crimes against religion, morality and public welfare (Part 7)
Includes crimes against religion; crimes against morality and decency; sexual crimes; sexual offences outside New Zealand; and crimes against public welfare.
Section 123 of the Crimes Act deals with blasphemy. Unlike the United Kingdom, New Zealand has not abolished this offence. In practice, charges can only be brought through permission of the New Zealand Solicitor-General, which is usually not forthcoming, given modern religious pluralism and free speech sensibilities.
The Crimes Amendment Act (No 3) 1985 (commenced 1 February 1986) criminalised marital rape and added the offence of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, criminalising female-on-male sexual violation and expanding sexual violation to include anal and oral intercourse.
The Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 amended the Crimes Act, allowing for consensual homosexual relationships between men.
The Crimes Amendment Act 2005 (commenced 20 July 2005) changed made most sexual offences gender-neutral. This closed a legal loophole which prevented adult females from being convicted of sexual offending against boys under 16.
Section 144A of the Crimes Act deals with New Zealand citizens and ordinary residents that commit acts of child sexual abuse in overseas jurisdictions through child sex tourism. It applies existing prohibitions against sexual connection and indecent acts with children under twelve and young people to children within overseas jurisdictions. Under Section 144C, it is also illegal to promote child sex tourism overseas from New Zealand.
In 2003, the Prostitution Law Reform Act 2003 decriminalised sex work, removing sections 147-149A of the Crimes Act, which had formerly prohibited most forms of prostitution in New Zealand through maintaining criminal penalties against soliciting, living off the proceeds of sex work, brothel-keeping and managing sex workers.
Crimes against the person (Part 8)
Includes duties tending to the preservation of life; homicide; murder and manslaughter; abortion; assaults and injuries to the person; female genital mutilation; bigamy and feigned marriage; and abduction and kidnapping.
The Sentencing Act 2002 changed the penalty for murder from mandatory life imprisonment to presumptive life imprisonment; sentencing judges now may waive the mandatory life imprisonment requirement and give a lesser sentence in exceptional ("manifestly unjust") circumstances.
There have been two attempts thus far to introduce regulated euthanasia in New Zealand through abolition of Section 179 of the Crimes Act 1961 and replacement with a liberalised regulatory regime, in 1995 and 2003. Both failed.
Section 187A of the Crimes Act was inserted in 1978. It provides access criteria for abortion in New Zealand and is the subject of perennial debates between the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (pro-choice) and the New Zealand right-to-life movement over greater restriction, maintenance and complete decriminalisation of abortion.
Section 204A outlaws female genital mutilation within New Zealand, while Section 204B deals with ancillary and related offences.