11 minute read
From the Outgoing President
Maria Dew KC*
Tēnā koutou katoa
It has been an absolute pleasure to lead the New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te Ture (NZBA) together with our Council, over the last two years. As I hand the reins over to Paul David KC, I am pleased to report the organisation is in a strong position to face the future. It is both financially and organisationally, in great heart.
I came into the role as President already knowing the importance of having a strong independent voice for our growing and increasingly diverse barrister community and the aims of our Association. I leave even more convinced that the Bar Association has a vital role and that our goals remain much the same as when the Association was first established.
The members of our Association are a thoughtful, caring and determined bunch, who give much of their time to support our collective goals. I hope all of you have gained, in some way, the benefit I have experienced from being part of this barrister community. It has been one of the delights of the President’s role, to attend and speak for the NZBA at ceremonial events and visit chambers all around the country, where I see so many barristers celebrating each other and proud to be part of our profession.
I am grateful to our hardworking Council, our Secretariat, committee members and other barrister volunteers, whose contributions fill the pages of this report.
We have focused our attention on:
Supporting our barrister community to succeed at the bar, by collegial support, learning and celebrations, and our specialist advocacy and dispute resolution training that recognises our unique role in the law; and
Speaking out on rule of law, access to justice and law reform issues, that are at the heart of our professional obligations and protect the healthy functioning of our legal system.
Issues that impact
One of our key goals is to ensure we advocate on issues that impact our members' practice, as well as those areas where members see value in our advocacy. This has meant a busy year for our committees, who have produced a number of these submissions. We are fortunate that we can call on senior and experienced members of the profession to develop submissions, often at short notice.
Submissions we have been involved with this year have included:
The directions for Judges from Te Kura Kaiwhakawā | The Institute of Judicial Studies (Te Kura) on responding to misconceptions about sexual offending. There was concern by criminal barristers about aspects of the directions. As a result of consultation with the NZBA and others, Te Kura has now published a revised version of directions which we believe better meets fair trial rights.
Tikanga in Legal Education. The NZBA has this year submitted a letter to the Regulations Review Committee supporting the Council of Legal Education in its recommendations. As the law stands and is developing, our Council agrees that Tikanga Māori is a necessary part of legal education.
Submissions to Parliamentary Select Committees have been a significant undertaking over the last 12 months, including proposed government reforms to Victim Impact Statements, section 27 Reports, Three Strikes legislation, the Ram-Raiding Bill, Gang Insignia Bill, Firearms Prohibition Orders Legislation Amendment Bill, the Courts (Remote Participation) Amendment Bill and the Privacy Amendment Bill.
Rules Committee – we have remained active on the mahi around streamlining the rules to improve access to justice and thank the judiciary for their willingness to collaborate with the profession on this work.
Media commentary has certainly been a part of the President’s role in the last 12 months. You may have noted the NZBA speaking out on several important issues such as Court security concerns for lawyers and the need for improvements, and Ministers' personal attacks on judges undermining our judiciary. These are issues that members are passionate about and support our objectives to speak out on issues that impact our profession.
Engagement with the Minister of Justice, Hon. Paul Goldsmith
In the last 12 months, Paul David KC and I have met twice with the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Paul Goldsmith, to advocate for issues important to the Bar Association.
We have continued to highlight that among the bar, legal academics, and the profession generally, there is a real concern that underfunding the courts and legal aid, will have profound adverse impacts on the operation of our justice system.
We have invited the Minister to take time to consider legislative change based on evidence and to allow time for the profession to provide submissions. We have noted the timeframes for responding to submissions has become so truncated that it risks not providing sufficient time needed to develop responses.
We should also acknowledge the real efforts made by the Minister to engage with the NZBA over this last year. Our meetings with the Minister have ensured that our members interests can be heard and our proposals for reform considered.
Legal Aid and the Legal Services Commissioner
I am pleased to report we have developed an excellent working relationship with the Legal Services Commissioner, who is proactive in her engagement with the profession about low-cost process and procedure improvements that will improve and expand legal aid. We suggested they need radical solutions and encouraged the Commissioner to consider removing all application process barriers, major change to PAL 3 to 4 approvals and junior counsel payments. These are gains that we hope will ease the burden on those barristers working in the legal aid arena and encourage more to take up a small share of the work.
However, it is not the complete answer by any means. So, the work continues. It is too important to resign ourselves to our legal system being undermined. We only need to look to the United Kingdom, to see the same concerns being raised by the Bar Council of England and Wales and the Law Society there. We continue to advocate for significant improvement in legal aid. This is an international issue which if we do not advocate for will undermine the operation of the courts and access to justice.
Connecting Criminal and Public/Civil Law Barristers
This mahi is a joint project with the Criminal Bar Association. Douglas Ewen KC advocated for the scheme to link criminal and public lawyers to assist defendants in custody who have public law and civil claims. There is currently an unmet legal need that Douglas identified and campaigned for before his death. Criminal lawyers have asked that our two organisations create a network to link and offer training to lawyers to undertake cases on legal aid or pro bono. The first meeting of interested barristers took place on 17 September 2024.
Self-Represented Litigants Project Pilot
In July of this year, we started working with the Law Society and Te Ara Ture on an Access to Justice Project to develop a High Court pilot scheme involving support for self-represented litigants.
The rollout of the pilot is likely to be in Auckland, followed by Wellington. The concept will involve pro bono advice via Te Ara Ture, about the court process to litigants who would otherwise be unrepresented at court. The Chief Judge of the High Court has welcomed this initiative. The Courts regularly see self-represented litigants in judicial review and civil claims struggling to navigate the court process without legal guidance.
NZBA Intervenor cases
This year we have received an increasing number of requests to act as an intervenor in cases. We do not accept all of these invitations. We assess the need for intervention where there are rule of law or access to justice issues at play and where our committees consider intervention will advance our members’ interests.
This year we intervened in the following cases:
CIV-2020-485-540 – Fawcett v Legal Services Commissioner (Counsel: Felix Geiringer and Philip Cornegé), dealing with legal aid counsel’s right to claim trial preparation costs.
CIV-2023-404-003115 – Awiyele v Mugisho (Counsel: Vivienne Crawshaw KC), dealing with the jurisdiction of the Family Court to appoint counsel to assist.
MPC 202023 – MW v SPIGA Ltd (Counsel: Karen Radich and Carter Pearce), dealing with name suppression principles in the employment jurisdiction.
I particularly want to acknowledge the pro bono work of counsel representing the Bar Association in these cases.
Diversity & Inclusion
This year we have continued our engagement with Te Hunga Rōia Māori, the NZ Asian Lawyers, Pacific Lawyers Associations, Auckland Women Lawyers, and Wellington Women Lawyers, finding ways to develop pathways for new members to join the bar and be supported by our Association. This has included sponsorship of attendance at our Conference and support for events that might encourage more lawyers to see the bar as a welcoming and viable career option. This remains a work in progress as we still have a long way to go to ensure that we reflect the communities we serve.
We have also commissioned an update on our research on the gender ratio of counsel appearances in the higher courts. This is due to be published later this year and will complement our earlier studies undertaken in 2018 and 2021, which highlighted the limited number of female lead counsel. This research is designed to ensure that we remained focused on equitable briefing, which is unfinished business for many women in the law.
Trans-Tasman Conference
The 2024 Conference was held on 16-17 August in Tāhuna Queenstown. This was a joint conference with the Australian Bar Association, and it was our second Trans-Tasman Conference. The last was held in 2019. I was delighted to host the event, alongside Peter Dunning KC, President of the Australian Bar Association.
This was a sellout conference. The Conference opened with the warmth of a mihi whakatau from representatives from Ngāi Tahu. I am pleased to report that even our NZBA Council was in great voice, as we sang our waiata, mostly thanks to the voices and harmonies of Genevieve Hazard, Kellie Arthur and Richard Raymond KC. We were honoured to have Annette Sykes, Te Ringahuia Hata and Natalie Coates join us.
A session delivered by the Hon Justice Stephen O’Meara achieved a standing ovation at Conference. He spoke about mental health at the bench and bar, drawing on his own experience of “hitting the wall” despite his successful career. It was a powerful speech, and we are very grateful for his bravery in sharing such a personal journey. I encourage you all to read his address to the Victorian Bar Readers Dinner in 2023, and prioritise your health and wellbeing. Justice O’Meara said:
“In a profession which is competitive, and intrinsically involves winning and losing, and in which the people that you’re competing against also double as your peers and friends, it’s probably no more realistic to tell you to seek support from your friends than it ever was for me. After all, how could I turn to anyone when I didn’t even know what was happening?”
The real point, I think, is to recognise that it can happen to you and to recognise it in yourself when it’s happening. When it happens, seek professional help as early as you can.2
Collegiality and our Committees
It has been a passion of mine to encourage a wider group of barristers into the Bar Association. This has seen the establishment of our Junior Barrister
Committee and re-invigoration of the Family Trusts and Estates Committee, to support these barristers into the Association.
Alongside our other committees we have had success in developing strong networks, where anyone is welcome to join and contribute to the committees' work and develop their networks to support life at the bar.
Speaking of collegiality, check out our Events section in this issue of At the Bar. There are some great photos from recent social events.
Farewell – for now
I am very proud of the work done and that this Bar Association will continue to do.
Any success we have had, is because of our collective effort. For now, I am off to have a cup of tea and a lie down, it has been a busy year!
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari he toa takitini
My strength is not that of an individual but that of a collective.
Ngā mihi nui
Maria Dew KC President
New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o Te Ture
References
1 Remarks of the Hon. Justice O'Meara, Victorian Bar Readers’ Dinner, Melbourne, 18 May 2023. https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/about-the-court/ speeches/speeches-by-the-hon-justice-omeara/victorian-bar-readers-dinner
2 The Law Society has partnered with Vitae to offer a free and confidential counselling service. The service provides for up to 3 free confidential sessions for anyone in a legal workplace, whether you're a lawyer or not. It is important to note that at no stage does the Law Society receive the names of identifying details of those who use this service. To talk to a counsellor, contact Vitae, freephone 0508 664 981, complete an online referral form, or download the Vitae NZ app from the App Store or Google Play. Make sure you mention you’re accessing the ‘Legal Community Counselling Service’.
