A second group has been chosen to form the jury to hear the case against a former MP accused of bribery and corruption.

Taito Phillip Field faces 35 charges, 12 for corruption and bribery as a member of Parliament and 23 counts of wilfully perverting the course of justice. The charges were laid after Field allegedly accepted work on seven of his properties by Thai nationals in return for immigration assistance between November 2002 and October 2005.

During that time he was Labour MP for Mangere but he was stood down by the party while authorities investigated the corruption claims.

He continued as an independent MP and unsuccessfully fought the 2008 general election as leader of the Pacific Party. He was beaten by Su'a William Sio by more than 7000 votes.

The charges of attempting to pervert or obstruct the course of justice were laid after he was alleged to have made false statements, encouraged others to make false statements and created false documents during subsequent inquiries into the corruption allegations by Queen's Counsel Noel Ingram and by the police.

He denies all the charges.

The trial in the High Court at Auckland has been set down for 12 weeks. Part of the reason it is expected to take so long is that a number of the witnesses will need an interpreter when giving evidence.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10567467

The question remains with me, why it has taken the Court such a very long time to hear the case? Being an Member of Parliament, and being allowed to continue to sit in the House for more than a year with this charge hanging over his head, can surely not retain the confidence in Parliamentarians that the public has a right to expect?

Would it not have been possible to have given some degree of urgency to deal with this case much sooner? Or was it "inconvenient" for the Labour Government to face the prospect of one of their M.P.'s ending up with a conviction against him, and this having to vacate the Seat?

Apart from Donna Awatere Huata, has NZ ever had an M.P. convicted of a criminal offence before?