Collins Judith: Urgent Debates — Resignation of Supreme Court Judge—Justice Wilson 
Collins Judith: Urgent Debates — Resignation of Supreme Court Judge—Justice Wilson 
[Volume:668;Page:15089] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Acting Attorney-General) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this matter. The member who has just resumed his seat David Parker a former Attorney-General has raised some issues. I will not deal with all of them because some of them relate to issues that he has stated as fact but also he has asked some questions about issues relating to the former Justice Wilson and my actions. 
I took over this matter on 19 April this year when the Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson transferred it to me under section 7 of the Constitution Act. Later on I was granted a warrant to be the Acting Attorney-General in relation specifically to this matter. At that stage the Attorney-General the Hon Christopher Finlayson had already referred this matter to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. The commissioner was already dealing with the matter. He presented a finding to me on 7 May recommending that I appoint a Judicial Conduct Panel under the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 to further investigate the complaints against Justice Wilson. I accepted that recommendation. At that stage I had received many unsolicited submissions from many members of the senior Bar including Queen’s Counsel and Senior Counsel. I had also received submissions from people who felt that they had been badly disadvantaged by the judge staying on the court when their matter was dealt with and I took advice from the Solicitor-General. The decision I made was that the matter should proceed and that I should appoint a panel. 
This is the first time that this Act has been used and it is the first time that we have come up against certain issues in it. For instance when appointing the panel I was not able to appoint an overseas judge. I was not able to bring some semblance that we had people from overseas who were not part of the judiciary in New Zealand or part of the New Zealand senior Bar. That was an issue that I think should be considered in future. I was one of the people who spoke against getting rid of our right to appeal to the Privy Council and this was one of the reasons. The fact is that New Zealand has a very small senior Bar and a very small judiciary and great care needs to be taken in relation to any matters. I support what the member who has just resumed his seat has said about great care needing to be taken in relation to appointments and judges’ behaviour. 
A judicial review was brought by the former Justice Wilson a full bench of the High Court heard the review on 1 to 3 September and it gave its judgment on 28 September. The court noted that the commissioner carried out an appropriate evaluative exercise in relation to the complaints and found that there was a legal basis upon which aspects of the judge’s conduct might properly be the subject of inquiry by a panel. It also dismissed the judge’s allegations concerning breach of natural justice and the taking into account of material that was hearsay or obtained in breach of confidence and legal privilege. The court directed the commissioner to conduct any further preliminary examination of the complaints that he considered necessary to form an opinion under section 15(1) in relation to the judge’s conduct including the period between the Supreme Court decisions  
Saxmere Company Limited and others v Wool Board Disestablishment Company Limited 
 and  
Saxmere Company Ltd v Wool Board Disestablishment Company (No. 2) 
 and if recommending the appointment of a panel to the Acting Attorney-General to identify the matters concerning the judge’s alleged conduct that met the requirements of the Act. 
This must surely rank as one of the most worrying matters that the very new Supreme Court and the judiciary have had to deal with. It has been a very difficult time for the judiciary and also I believe for the senior Bar to have seen this matter progress. Some comment has been made about the settlement arrangements that I made on behalf of the people in relation to the former Justice Wilson. I am happy to take full responsibility for those decisions and I believe that they were the right decisions. I am happy to speak to the House about how I came to those decisions. 
On 4 October this year the judge’s counsel approached the Solicitor-General to discuss whether and on what terms the judge might tender his resignation. The terms offered by the former judge were extremely excessive and I would not countenance them at all. 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Would you reveal them? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: I am not prepared to reveal them at this stage given that they were made in confidence. I would need to seek advice on that. However I can say that they were absolutely excessive and I would not take them further. After discussions and there were many discussions—not with me and the former judge because I did not meet the former judge and I do not believe I have ever met him in my life; if I did it obviously did not leave an impression—he tendered his resignation on 21 October with effect from 5 p.m. on 5 November on the following terms: that he receive payment of his existing entitlements and I am sure nobody would disagree with that; and that he receive payment of 1 year’s salary which is taxable being $410000 gross from 5 November. I bore in mind when I agreed to that that this matter could drag on for another 2 years or more. I was advised that there was something like six different appeal opportunities along the way. 
Despite the fact that there were all sorts of suggestions at various times that the judge might resign of his own accord there seemed very little reality that that would ever happen unless the matter was settled. It was not my intention to bring about the resignation of a judge. I think it is an extraordinarily difficult thing to ever have to oversee. However the judge made this offer himself. It was not asked of him. We also had to agree to pay his solicitor-client costs and like the speaker who has resumed his seat I thought they were very high. I was however informed that they were reasonable in the meaning of the word and in the meaning of what had gone on and the matter of proceedings. I was also fully aware that it is a constitutional principle that the Crown should meet at least part of the reasonable costs of counsel for a judge in complaints proceedings. I refer to section 27 of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 which made it very clear that it was expected that the judge’s expenses would be paid. 
Of course the Crown also has to meet its own costs in this matter. The costs for judicial proceedings of this nature if they had been allowed to continue because I did not feel able to accept the judge’s offer to resign could have been far more severe. The costs in my view looked very much as though they would continue into stratospheric levels. I was not prepared to have that happen if there was an opportunity to cut the losses for such for the Crown and the taxpayer. I also noted that all the way through these proceedings the judge would be entitled to be paid his full salary even though he was in effect on garden leave and I did not think that that was a useful spend of the taxpayer’s money either. 
This has been an extraordinarily difficult time as I have said. I however believe that I have made the right decision and that this matter had to be brought to an end. We have a very new Supreme Court. We have a court that is still working very hard and is trying very very solidly to build its reputation. It did not need this matter continuing. Comment has been made—I think not today but certainly in the media—about whether we will know what actually happened and whether we will find an end to this and to the effect that if the Judicial Conduct Commissioner had been allowed to continue with his second report it would show it. Actually as soon as the judge resigned then that report had to stop and the investigation had to stop. There was no guarantee at all that that would come out. Yes we could have continued on. Yes I could have said that we were not going to pay the judge anything and that we were not going to settle the matter. But I believe that that would have been at a far greater cost. 
There is a matter that I am aware of which the next speaker Dr Kennedy Graham is going to raise and that is the issue of pecuniary interests for judges. I think it is quite important to note that the former judge was appointed straight to the Court of Appeal by the previous Attorney-General the Hon Dr Michael Cullen. That was in 2007 and that was without the more traditional apprenticeship of being on the High Court. Ten months later he was elevated to the Supreme Court. I do not know whether that had anything to do with the matters that then proceeded but I do think that it is very difficult sometimes for people who have come in from very high positions in say the legal profession to suddenly know that every matter that they do will be scrutinised. Many people come to Parliament from very high positions and suddenly find that all their actions will be scrutinised and the subject of debate. 
Hon David Parker 
: But what if you’ve sat on  
Muir v the Commissioner of Inland Revenue 
? 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: Well that is a point raised. But I would have to say that that was very concerning and it is a point. 
Although this matter has been very unfortunate I believe that there are some positives to be found in its entrails. It has shown that judges of even the highest court in New Zealand are open to scrutiny. It shows that they can be held to account and therefore find their continued hold on office untenable; I believe that that is what has happened here. I took absolutely no pleasure whatsoever in receiving Justice Wilson’s resignation. I thought it was an extraordinarily sad day that we had got to that situation and I do not think that anybody in this House would find it a very edifying situation. As I said I could have kept the matter going but I chose not to. I believe that that was the right decision based on the cost to the public and the Supreme Court which is very new and needs to have a lot more years under it before it sees anything like this again. Hopefully it never will. 
I know that there are people who have felt that this matter has hurt their feelings about and confidence in the judiciary of New Zealand. They should not—because the judiciary in New Zealand has felt this more strongly than anybody else. 
In essence this matter is something that nobody would wish on the judiciary of New Zealand again. I would hope that the matter of pecuniary interests will be addressed in some way shape or form. I know it is a matter that the judges feel very keenly and it is a matter that nobody ever wants to see repeated.