From the President Kate Davenport QC*

Kia ora koutou

A wrap up of our life in Covid-19

Unfortunately, this issue of At the Bar was delayed by the amount of work our team had to do during the Covid 19 outbreak, and the subsequent catch up on our usual workload. Covid 19 is, of course, still lurking in the background, but we are beginning to move on.

That doesn’t mean that we have been silent during that time. On 19 March 2020, I took over a portion of the NZBA website with a view to keeping our members connected and updated during the lockdown about what the NZBA was doing. That began a series of emails and updates, which allowed me to get to know many of you, which was a great pleasure, as well as a source of support and comfort for me and the NZBA team.

As I look back through those columns, I realise that the lockdown plunged us all into some form of isolation and that social interaction was something that so many people were missing. I hope we managed to help a little bit with that through our virtual happy hours (see below).

Another feature of the columns I wrote was the number of times I acknowledged the value of the feedback that we received about what members wanted to see happen and how we could best help everyone. I talked about what was going on and shared your jokes and stories or suggestions. Your feedback was very important and did inform a lot of the decisions that were made by the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary.

I want to thank you one more time for your contributions during this period. I know we are all suffering from “feedback fatigue” and that many of us cannot face the thought of another email in the next few months, if not years! You are not alone in this: I have had to put my foot down over our Executive Director’s suggestion that from now on we submit all feedback by Twitter. While I do sympathise with her, I have no desire for my presidency to be compared to that of Donald Trump.

Another thank you is owed to all those who participated in our virtual happy hours. I enjoyed chatting with you and learning about your experiences. We are going to continue catching up with members online. We recently held a virtual welcome for several new members which gave us a chance to meet them and find out why they joined the bar.

There are lots of matters that we can talk about close to home, but I want to focus on events abroad for a few minutes. The first event was the July swearing-in of our former Council member, Satiu Simativa Perese, as Chief Justice of Samoa. I was delighted to be able to wish him all the best in his new role at a special e-meeting of the NZBA council earlier in the year, which was attended by the President of the Pacific Lawyers Association, Tania Sharkey. The respect in which the new Chief Justice is held was evident, and Tania's remarks reduced several council members to teary eyes!

As an organisation, we have always spoken out about matters that affect the rule of law. Over the last two years we have been concerned about incursions on the judicial system in Hong Kong that compromise the independence of its judiciary and the rights of its citizens to freedom of speech. As you will have noticed from the media, this concern has escalated with proposals that will affect the rights of those who live in Hong Kong. We sent a formal letter of support to the Hong Kong Bar. I have also been very pleased to see the British government offering increased rights to come to the UK for Hong Kong citizens.

At the same time, we are all viewing the events in the United States with a sense of disbelief. A police officer kneels on a man’s neck for eight minutes, despite his pleas to be allowed to breathe, and he dies. A president then tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase that is said to be linked to the civil rights era protests and a white police chief who used the phrase at that time.

The death and the tweet sparked riots in the US and protests around the world. It is unbelievable that we need to say this in 2020. Black lives matter. What happened to George Floyd must never happen to anyone again.

We ourselves cannot feel complacent. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of incarceration of its indigenous people. We need to stand up for what is right. I highly recommend reading Hon. Justice Whata's article on p10 of this issue as a way of educating ourselves.

There are no easy answers on how to ensure change, but we can start by looking at the messages that we share with our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and our neighbourhoods and communities. We have to communicate clearly about respecting basic human rights for all.

Kate *Kate Davenport QC is the President of the New Zealand Bar Association. If you have any questions or comments about this column, please email Kate at president@nzbar.org.nz.

New Members of the NZBA

Sarah Armstrong Gemma Aspell Jane Barrow James Carruthers James Christmas Grace Collett Shaun Connolly Naomi Cramer Michelle de Geest Hunter de Groot Paul Depledge Gowan Duff Graeme Edwards Anne Fisher Jane (Janey) Forrest Riaan Geldenhuys John Goddard Kirsten Hagan Bruce Hall Barry Hayes Rebecca Holm Jeremy Johnson Mark Keating Fionnuala Kelly Devon Kemp Zane Kennedy Ailson King Mark Kirkland Kerry Knight