Collins Judith: Judicial Matters Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Judicial Matters Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12810] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I have been listening with interest to the speeches in relation to this bill. National as has been said on a number of occasions this evening opposes the bill. That does not mean we do not recognise there are some issues regarding some very few instances of behaviour from some very few members of the judiciary that certainly need to be looked at. Having said that National does not believe that this bill adequately addresses that need. 
When I looked at the instances of complaints made about judges in each court I saw there were remarkably few. In 2002—the latest year for which we have statistics—in the Appeal Court there were no complaints about the judiciary. In the High Court there were 11 complaints and of those five were about the judgment. In other words it did not go that person’s way. So there were six about something other than the judgment. In the Employment Court there were no complaints about the judiciary. In the District Court there were 36 of which 19 were about the judgment. The District Court is a very heavily used court and to get such a small number of complaints I think is a credit to its judges. The Maori Land Court had five complaints of which one was about the judgment. The Environment Court is a court one would think might have a few complaints made about it but no there were only three complaints which were all about the judgment rather than the conduct of the judges. The Family Court a most contentious court had 15 complaints of which five were about the judgment. 
This is not a situation where there are constant complaints made about judges; there are actually very very few. The previous speaker from the Government benches referred to the fact that there have been some quite well-publicised cases of a few judges who have got into difficulty. But this bill unfortunately does not adequately deal with the situation because it requires the removal of those judges. National thinks there is a much better course of action—to be able to look at the whole issue rather than simply removing those judges. We already have the ability to remove judges—if this Parliament were ever to take that course. 
National is concerned about the constitutional issues involved. We are very much concerned that Parliament as the representative of the people of New Zealand must be sovereign in these matters and that has been one of our biggest complaints about the bill. It does not deal with the disciplining of judges or dealing with issues. It deals only with the removal of judges and we already have the right to do that anyway. Of course most people just like to have a stab from the sidelines and do not actually want to take matters further. The bill does not deal with the appointment of judges. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That’s right ad hoc. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is a very very ad hoc situation. Earlier this year we had the rather embarrassing situation of a now Master of the High Court Mr Christiansen. It turned out there was an issue regarding a complaint of harassment. That matter is I think before the courts so I will not deal with that. But his appointment as a Master of the High Court is something we can deal with. He was appointed by the current Attorney-General. He had decided to resign as a District Court judge and he just walked out of court that very day without a by your leave or any sort of resignation—other than walking out. Now this bill does not deal with the appointment of judges. It will not lead to a better system of appointing judges. So when the Attorney-General told the media and everybody else in this Parliament that this bill would fix that problem of the appointment of judges she was mistaken. Considering it is her bill one would have thought that she would actually read it. 
Hon Murray McCully 
: Yes where is she? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I am wondering why we have not heard from the Attorney-General on this bill. Clearly she does not take it very seriously. 
There is another issue we want to deal with tonight— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: What are you doing over there? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I believe that shouting across the Chamber from one member to another—nothing to do with this speech—is out of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Both sides could be guilty of that but there is a Speaker’s ruling that people are not to interject when they do not have the floor. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I want to deal with the issue of part-time judges. There has been a call in this bill—and the Government is listening to it and going ahead with it—for part-time judges. Unlike many members on the Government side some of us on this side know a lot of judges from our years of practising as lawyers. We know that one of the biggest beefs or annoyances is that judges are not allowed to take unpaid leave. They would like to be able to do that. I have not yet had any judges tell me that they want to become part-timers but they would like to take unpaid leave with regard to special things they are working on. 
I ask why we cannot simply grant that wish. Why are we inflicting upon the judiciary—a body of people with the highest professional integrity who give away a tremendous amount of freedoms to serve the public—the onus of having to carry part-time judges? That is exactly what they will have to do because the work of judges does not start at one time and necessarily finish at another set time. Those judges often have juries they have to wait for. They often wait around in the night until 11 or 12 o’clock for a jury to come back into court. If we start saying that that is a part-time job I think that part-time judges might feel they are entitled to go home at lunchtime or dinnertime. After all those judges will have signed up to a part-time job. I think that will lead to a lack of professionalism. 
If we were facing a situation where there was a tremendous lack of judges or of people wishing to be judges then maybe we could look at it. But we do not have that situation. With regard to the appointment of women judges I can tell members there is no shortage of very competent women lawyers whom I know have their applications in to be judges on a full-time basis. So what particular evil is this bill correcting? It is all about lowering the standards of judges and turning them into part-time people when they are actually highly skilled professional people who have almost invariably worked far more than full-time jobs in their previous careers in law. 
This bill is a retrograde step for the judiciary in New Zealand. It does not improve the situation of the judiciary and it will not lead to better judgments.