Dear Ministry of Justice,

On a document titled 19 May 2021, Legal Advice, LPA 01 01 24, addressed to Hon David Parker Attorney-General, your Ministry states the following:

9. Section 10 of the Bill of Rights Act affirms that every person has the right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without that person's consent.

10. The Bill allows new medicines to have provisional consent without any requirement that it be for a limited number of people. This could potentially include new medicines that could be considered "experimental".

11. However, we do not think that potentially exposing a wider range of people to "experimental" medicine engages section 10.

12. The fact that medicine is "experimental" does not make it "experimentation", if, for example, there is no plan to "gather any new or additional information about the effect of the thing on people for general scientific purposes".

13. Further, the Bill does not affect requirements to ensure that any medical experiments are conducted in a way that is consistent with the Bill of Rights Act, for example, by requiring informed consent.

Please provide the scientific evidence that was provided to support these opinions.

Please provide the peer reviewed data that supported these opinions.

Please advise if these opinions were corroborated against International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) recommendations or any other international standards or conventions.

Yours faithfully,

Nadine Connock

Dear [email address],

Please advise if these opinions were corroborated against International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) recommendations or any other international standards or conventions.

Please advise if there was any discussion or reference to implications of the Helsinki Declaration.

The Ministry of Justice cited their reference to the following statement from a Court case Taunoa vs Attorney-General 2004:

12. The fact that medicine is "experimental" does not make it "experimentation", if, for example, there is no plan to "gather any new or additional information about the effect of the thing on people for general scientific purposes"

Please advise whether there was any discussion of the ethics and implications of basing legal advice upon this case law?

Please advise why this case law was used?

Yours sincerely,

Nadine Connock