Hon CHRISTOPHER FINLAYSON (Attorney-General) Link to this
I move, That, pursuant to section 7(2) and clause 1(1) of schedule 2 of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004, this House recommend His Excellency the Governor-General appoint David Rendel Kingston Gascoigne DCNZM CBE of Wellington as the Judicial Conduct Commissioner for a term of 5 years from the date of appointment having noted that the Attorney-General advises this House, in accordance with section 7(3) of the Act, that the Chief Justice has been consulted about the appointment.
The Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 came into effect on 1 August 2005. It provided for the office of a Judicial Conduct Commissioner and set out a statutory regime for dealing with complaints about judges’ conduct. The commissioner is the first port of call for all complaints about judges, with the Act requiring all complaints about the conduct of a judge to be directed to the commissioner. One of the aims of this system is to remove from the judiciary the burden of responding to complaints that have no substance. It is not a function of the commissioner to challenge or call into question the legality or correctness of any instruction, direction, order, judgment, or other decision given or made by a judge in relation to any legal proceedings, or to undermine the immunities that attach by law to the discharge of judicial responsibilities.
The position requires a person of high standing in the community with demonstrated integrity. The proposed appointee must be familiar with the role of the judiciary and with the principles of judicial independence, natural justice, and procedural fairness, and must be a good communicator. The first appointee as Judicial Conduct Commissioner was Mr Ian Haynes ONZM. He has recently tendered his resignation, effective from 12 July 2009. I thank him for his service in the role.
Mr Gascoigne is a lawyer and professional director. He has held a number of directorships in both the public and private sectors. He began his career with Watts and Patterson, as it then was, where he became chairman of partners. He was a founding partner and subsequently national chairman of partners of the merged law firm Rudd Watts and Stone, which is now known as Minter Ellison Rudd Watts. He is now a consultant to that firm and a member of the firm’s board. Mr Gascoigne is also very experienced in administration of the arts, having been chair of Opera New Zealand since 2002 and one of the founding trustees of the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. He was awarded the CBE in 1989 for his services to film, and the DCNZM in 2005 for his services to the arts and business. He received an inaugural Distinguished Alumni Award from Victoria University of Wellington in 2006.
The term of appointment is for not less than 2 years and not more than 5. It is proposed that Mr Gascoigne’s appointment be for 5 years. The commissioner is remunerated at a rate that is set by the Remuneration Authority.
The Judicial Matters Bill currently before the House will allow for the appointment of a deputy commissioner who can deal with a complaint when the commissioner has a conflict of interest, is absent, or is incapacitated, or when there is a vacancy in the office of the commissioner. I am pleased to move a recommendation to His Excellency the Governor-General to appoint Mr Gascoigne as the Judicial Conduct Commissioner.
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) Link to this
I am happy to rise and endorse the recommendation by the Attorney-General that the Governor-General appoint Mr Gascoigne as the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. I thank the Attorney-General for the consultation prior to his putting forward the name of Mr Gascoigne. Mr Gascoigne is, as one would expect of a person being promoted for this position, a responsible senior lawyer with many years’ experience and with respect throughout the legal community and across both sides of the House. I was fortunate to have experience in dealing with Mr Gascoigne in his prior role as the chair of the Transpower board. I always found him to be a man of integrity and a man of his word. He never played any games. He was responsible and capable. Charles Chauvel will be able to confirm that he was a chairman of partners of Minter Ellison for a number of years. Mr Gascoigne is very experienced in the law, and I am sure he will bring the wisdom that is required to deal with the sorts of accusations that are made from time to time against judges.
Although it is appropriate that we have a Judicial Conduct Commissioner, it is also important that that person be wise enough to exercise his or her discretion to reject out of hand complaints that ought not to go forward. There will always be disenchanted litigants who find it convenient to blame the referee when they have a decision that goes against them. We have to be careful that we are not so process driven that we accept at face value all complaints that are made, and that we have a vetting process to sort the very rare cases from the other cases so that we are not unnecessarily causing undue attention to be given to what at times can be spurious allegations. We tread a fine line in protecting the institutions we hold dear in New Zealand when we try to balance the need to properly investigate accusations of a serious nature against the need to preserve public confidence in institutions that can be undermined by repeated and sometimes scurrilous allegations against judicial officers. I think that through this Parliament and through the Judicial Conduct Commissioner we are getting that balance right, and I am happy to endorse the Attorney-General’s recommendation of David Gascoigne as the initial appointee. Thank you.
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) Link to this
It is the pleasure of the Green Party to endorse the appointment of Mr Gascoigne to the position of Judicial Conduct Commissioner. Having considered his qualifications, we are satisfied that he is eminently equipped to undertake the role, and we are entirely confident that he will fulfil the requirements of the position with distinction. We simply wish him well in the execution of his duties.
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) Link to this
I want to make a brief contribution to the debate on this appointment. The office of Judicial Conduct Commissioner was established in August 2005 to deal with the issue of complaints against the judiciary. The purpose of establishing the office was to enhance public confidence in the judiciary and to protect the impartiality and integrity of the judicial system. Under the legislation complaints can be made against judges of the various courts set out in section 5 of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004. A very wide range of judges falls within the ambit of that section: temporary, associate, and acting judges, but not, obviously, retired or former judges.
As the Attorney-General mentioned, the first Judicial Conduct Commissioner was Ian Haynes, a past president of the New Zealand Law Society and a former president of the Auckland District Law Society. Mr Haynes is a well respected lawyer in New Zealand and internationally, and is the architect of a new model for the governance of the legal profession, on which the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act is based.
One thing that I think it is appropriate to mention in this debate is that the Judicial Matters Bill, which was introduced by the previous Labour Government, is awaiting its second reading. It seems to me that it is worth commending that legislation to the Attorney-General, because it makes some sensible machinery amendments to the legislation that would make the job a lot easier for the candidate currently under consideration for recommendation to the Governor-General. It would allow for the appointment of a Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner and it would allow the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, in addition to existing remedies that he may exercise, to decide to take no further action on a complaint. I think the Attorney-General will know—he is nodding—that one of the frustrations Mr Haynes found in the role was that he did not have those powers. He did not have a deputy to delegate any power to, and he had to deal with each and every complaint that came before him. He did not have any power to dismiss them in limine in the event that they were clearly baseless. I urge the Government to consider the merits of that bill, because I think that if Mr Gascoigne’s recommendation is adopted by the Governor-General and he is appointed, he will find those powers quite necessary.
I have just one or two words on Mr Gascoigne. As the Attorney-General said, he was a founding partner of my old firm, now known as Minter Ellison Rudd Watts. I was fortunate to spend some 8 years in that firm with David Gascoigne as a mentor when he was a consultant to the firm and I was a partner. He is a fine person. In addition to the positions that have already been outlined as having been held by him, he is also a very distinguished corporate governance expert. He has been a chair of Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand and New Zealand Insurance, and he served on the Minter Ellison Rudd Watts board at the same time that I did.
I would just like to note, with some pride, that Minter Ellison Rudd Watts is a firm that delights in making its personnel available for public office in this way. There is Cathy Quinn’s contribution on the Securities Commission. David Patterson served on Michael Cullen’s tax review, the so-called McLeod Tax Review. Peter Rowe served on the board of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. The firm has also made its contribution to the judiciary in the persons of Justices Allan and MacKenzie in the High Court at the moment, and Judges Thomas and Crosbie in the District Court, amongst others. David Gascoigne joins in that tradition, and I am sure he will hold his head high as he performs the important role of Judicial Conduct Commissioner. I certainly wish him well in that role, in common with other members of the House.