Mr President,
Allow me to extend the gratitude of Sweden to the delegation of New Zealand for having responded to the recommendations we made during the 5th session of the UPR. We note that only 2 of the 14 reviewed states that had responses pending, provided their answers in writing well in advance of this session. We thank New Zealand for being one of the two, since it makes it much easier for us to verify how the recommendations have been received.
We welcome the government’s support of our recommendation to increase efforts to combat all forms of violence against women. There were many other recommendations where the government of New Zealand only agreed to some aspects of the recommendation, but not fully. We understand that there can be a need to explain a position, but it will make it difficult to follow-up on the report, since it is unclear to what extent the government has committed itself to work on the implementation of those recommendations.
In the review in May, Sweden voiced concern about the over-representation of Maori and Pacific persons in the country’s criminal justice system. We welcomed the measures that were mentioned in NZ’s presentation, and recommended to continue those efforts to ensure that people belonging to minority groups are not discriminated against in the criminal justice system. We regret that the government could only agree in part to our recommendation, and would like to reiterate that also the CERD committee stressed the need to prevent racial discrimination in the functioning of the criminal justice system in New Zealand. We hope the government will continue working on those problems from all angles and include all factors that can explain why certain groups are over-represented.
Thank you, Mr President.