Wilkinson Kate: Judicial Retirement Age Bill — In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Judicial Retirement Age Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7643] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 I stand to take a call on Part 1 of the Judicial Retirement Age Bill. My colleagues have already commented that only two clauses are provided in Part 1: one is the commencement clause and the other is the purpose clause. Just to reiterate the purpose I say that the bill is a fairly straightforward bill to increase the statutory retiring age of judges associate judges of the High Court coroners and community magistrates from 68 years of age to 70 years of age. 
I would like to mention in this part of the call perhaps not what Part 1 provides for but what it does not provide for—that is justices of the peace. There is no mention in the Judicial Retirement Age Bill of the Justices of the Peace Act. There is absolute silence as to that Act and there is no mention of the retirement age of justices of the peace. Justices of the Peace are appointed as justices. They hold judicial office and at the moment the retirement age for JPs is 72 years of age. So that situation is incongruous with the proposed retirement age of 70 years in the Judicial Retirement Age Bill. We are aware of course that the Justices of the Peace Amendment Bill is currently before a select committee. I just remind the Committee that we need to ensure that the retirement age of JPs is consistent with the proposed retirement age of 70 years in the Judicial Retirement Age Bill. If we do not we could have the incongruous situation of one class of judicial officer having a completely different compulsory retirement age from another class. JPs would retire at 72 and judges would retire at 70. 
Perhaps in this vein I will refer to the comments of my colleague Dr Worth in relation to the commencement date of this bill. It may be conceivable that the commencement date of this Act could occur prior to any amendment to the Justices of the Peace Act. So there may be an interval of time—assuming that the justices of the peace legislation will make those age limits consistent—when we have inconsistencies and differences in retirement age. It seems that it is certainly preferable to have the retirement age of both justices of the peace and judges—indeed of judicial officers—consistent and at 70 years. 
In earlier speeches I referred to the arbitrary nature of age—whether it was the arbitrary nature of a young age-limit as in the age-limits for holding a firearm or purchasing a beer or whether it was the age-limit at the other end of the scale that of a compulsory age-limit. It is quite interesting to look at the age of our current judges and if we look at the ones aged between 65 and 68 we see that 11 of them are currently sitting in New Zealand. Nine of them are District Court judges and two are High Court judges. To extend that retirement age would certainly help to retain that intellectual capital. In my speech on the second reading I think I said that 68 years did not appear to be a particularly old age—neither does 70 for that matter—but the nearer one approaches that age the younger the age seems. 
I would like to take a call on Part 2 later on. National supports the bill. It is straightforward and merely increases the retirement age of judges and other justices to 70 years of age which is consistent with many other jurisdictions such as those of the United Kingdom Australia and Ireland. It is an arbitrary age-limit. It is not an indication of a judge’s competence or otherwise. It is merely a mandatory retirement age. It is important to have a mandatory retirement age for judicial officers for the security of tenure and also as has previously been mentioned by the Minister for judicial independence.