Chauvel Charles: Appointments — Electoral Commission Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner 
Chauvel Charles: Appointments — Electoral Commission Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner 
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CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 Although it is always a pleasure to hear from Mr Joyce it is a shame that the Attorney-General was not able to move the motion we have just heard because it would have been too difficult to resist the temptation to remind the Attorney-General of what he said when it was first proposed by the Labour Government that the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner be created. He said: “The Labour Party approach is illustrated by this foolish legislation: set up an office create procedures appoint a commissioner and then bring on the inevitable amendment bill that seeks to appoint a deputy commissioner.” Well he was quite right except of course that an amendment bill came in under the National Government last year. “The next thing we will have is a registrar a council of worthies hundreds of bureaucrats and lo and behold a culture of complaint being encouraged and nurtured. There are plenty of litigants out there who having lost their cases will personalise them against judges. They are encouraged by this ridiculous regime to make complaints.” I suppose it is different being in Government as we saw with the flip-flop over the therapeutic goods administration earlier in the week. 
Turning to the merits of the motion I tell members that new sections 8A and 8B of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 now provide for an office called the Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner and I remember the debates we had in the House on this last year. The reality is that the Judicial Conduct Commissioner has become an important office. It is a place where people feel that they can go when they have a concern about the way they have been treated in our court system that they do not like. As a result the number of people seeking to use the office has increased greatly. 
I looked at the annual report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner from last year where Sir David Gascoigne takes great care to recount the level and volume of complaints that have been made to his office. It is instructive to consider that report because it indicates that not only have people found the office to be a useful place to take concerns and complaints but also the number of complaints that have been found to have any substance is very very small. So I think we can take double comfort from this. First people are using the office—hence the need for a deputy to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. But secondly many of the complaints are not being upheld. So people have a safety valve. They have somewhere they can go if they do not feel well treated and they get a decent process. The complaint is investigated and no doubt they feel they have had a fair hearing as a result of the process. But in the end it is confirmed that generally speaking we have a judiciary that is working well because most of the complaints are not upheld. So there are two reasons to be pleased about the way this office is working and the fact that it has been introduced. 
The other comment that is useful to note in the report of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner is that the judiciary itself has been very cooperative with the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner. Judges are independent: they have tenure they are not public servants and they are under no duty to cooperate with any statutory officer whom we may appoint. The fact that they have almost universally adopted an approach that is cooperative indicates that they too have come to welcome this move as one that enhances confidence in the judicial process and in our judiciary—a very important pillar one of the three in our constitution. They are things that I think are appropriate to put on record particularly given certain events over the last year. 
Mr Ritchie is somebody who is known to any lawyer who practised during the period that he was executive director of the New Zealand Law Society. I was admitted to the Bar in 1989; he began working at the New Zealand Law Society in 1985. All communications from the society were signed by him and he was a figure who I think was regarded as somebody who worked diligently as an administrator in the society. As the motion from the Attorney-General on the Order Paper records as is required by the Act this is an appointment that the Chief Justice concurred with so we can fully expect that the cooperation that has been extended to Sir David Gascoigne in his role as Chief Judicial Conduct Commissioner will be extended also to Alan Ritchie as his deputy. We can fully expect that the confidence that has been enhanced in the judiciary by the existence of this office and its fair and full processing of complaints will also continue. 
There are other things that this House needs to look forward to. One member has already foreshadowed a proposal to bring forward a register of judicial pecuniary interests and members on this side of the House have indicated that we approve of that general approach and would support it. It is necessary in this day and age that every public official appointed or elected acts with appropriate transparency and it is inevitable that that is the direction in which we are moving. It is something that rather than running from all actors in the constitutional drama should actually embrace. But as I say the appointment of Alan Ritchie is supported by members on this side and we hope that his work as the inaugural Deputy Judicial Conduct Commissioner will continue to bolster the important work that the Office of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner conducts in terms of assuring people that the judiciary is somewhere they can go for a fair and full disposal of the litigation they may wish to engage in.