- Judges - a law unto themselves in their strange world
- By Michael Laws
- Sunday Star Times
- 14/05/2006 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: admin ( 61 articles in 2006 )
A generation ago, New Zealand was a closed shop. Literally when it came to its shops, figuratively for the rest of the country. In those days, privilege was its own justification. Politics never required any, commerce resembled an arthritic Rotary Club, and the professions ran the show.
Twenty-five years on, we live in a freer world. No one now accepts that status, qualifications and longevity are the automatic routes to respect. This is has become an anti-authoritarian world.
We are the generation our parents warned us against. But, to spite them, we're richer than they are, better educated and we'll live longer. This is partly because we have learned to trust no one - but most especially the professions. We see professions for what they are, white-bread oligarchies. Telecom in a tie.
Such disrespect is healthy. It is also overdue. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers, accountants and journalists are nothing special. They are ordinary individuals who used to think the world owed them a living because they were special. That's what their mothers told them, and they believed it.
We now discount such thinking as antiquated. Antediluvian, even. But members of one group still give themselves protection that is not their due, and and exhibit almost hysterical offence at any idea of challenge. Judges.
The judiciary, as I have previously opined, are not normal people. They are the weirdest of fruit - peremptorily pompous with a touch of the Templar. Not surprising really, as theirs is a world both cloistered and megalomaniacal. In their tiny domain, they are the law. And don't they know it.
The lawyers who appear before them are not so much advocates as supplicants. Professional toadies seeking favours for their clients. Sure, legislation is important. And there is precedent to apply. But a personable barrister, with a fine command of deference, can be the best defender of any felon.
All these silly sensibilities were on display this week when first, the Bar Association and then principal Family Court judge Peter Boshier came out swinging.
The Bar Association was upset because National MP Murray McCully had the temerity to suggest that Solicitor-General Terence Arnold was not a wise choice as an appellate judge. McCully's charge was that Arnold had questions of bias about him. That he had approved the prosecutions of Nats Shane Ardern and Nick Smith, but rejected similar action against Labour's art pretender Helen Clark and tennis ball-stuffer David Benson-Pope.
Retired appeal court judge Ted Thomas even called the attack "grossly unfair". It would not help recruit lawyers to the judiciary, Thomas harrumphed, if they were to be attacked by "disgruntled politicians".
The Bar Association said McCully was a blight, and Terence Arnold was the Mother Teresa of their profession. He just charged more.
Boshier's spleen was directed at the Families Need Fathers lobby group, which had engaged in a "personal vendetta" against his colleagues. They were protesting outside the judges' homes. How dare they!
It's time for these legal suits to get a grip. Family Court judges get grief because some of their decision-making is questionable. There is a tendency to think that fathers denied visitation don't require the same judicial intervention as their partners require in seeking non-molestation orders.
McCully is correct to challenge the credentials of one who has made subjective decisions about prosecution of parliamentarians. He may be wrong - Arnold may well become one of the country's most able jurists. But the appointment of such individuals to such powerful positions does demand scrutiny. Judges need to be accountable too.
Most relationship breakdowns are messy. Especially those involving children, because you're still required to interact with a partner who may have rejected, betrayed or disappointed you - or whom you may have rejected, betrayed or disappointed.
But Courts Minister Rick Barker thinks that he has the answer. He's going to send you a video. A trial on the North Shore has suggested state intervention in relationship break-ups can reduce negative consequences for the kids. A couple of seminars, and a video on "how to be a better ex-partner", and much of the stress is going to be removed from those poor Family Court judges.
And the government is serious about it too. The programme is worth $6 million. Barker says 97% of couples who volunteered for the pilot think that such courses should be compulsory. Yes, volunteered. In other words, they were already quite happy to sit down and chat with their ex-partner about the kids. Like, they had an issue in the first place.
And there's the whole problem about government social policy wrapped up in one execution. Middle-class white people in Wellington designing something for middle-class white people on the Shore. Of course, it must work for the rest of the country.
Maybe judges are not the last bastion of professional privilege. That place is still reserved for liberal bureaucrats living in Wellington.
Twenty-five years on, we live in a freer world. No one now accepts that status, qualifications and longevity are the automatic routes to respect. This is has become an anti-authoritarian world.
We are the generation our parents warned us against. But, to spite them, we're richer than they are, better educated and we'll live longer. This is partly because we have learned to trust no one - but most especially the professions. We see professions for what they are, white-bread oligarchies. Telecom in a tie.
Such disrespect is healthy. It is also overdue. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers, accountants and journalists are nothing special. They are ordinary individuals who used to think the world owed them a living because they were special. That's what their mothers told them, and they believed it.
We now discount such thinking as antiquated. Antediluvian, even. But members of one group still give themselves protection that is not their due, and and exhibit almost hysterical offence at any idea of challenge. Judges.
The judiciary, as I have previously opined, are not normal people. They are the weirdest of fruit - peremptorily pompous with a touch of the Templar. Not surprising really, as theirs is a world both cloistered and megalomaniacal. In their tiny domain, they are the law. And don't they know it.
The lawyers who appear before them are not so much advocates as supplicants. Professional toadies seeking favours for their clients. Sure, legislation is important. And there is precedent to apply. But a personable barrister, with a fine command of deference, can be the best defender of any felon.
All these silly sensibilities were on display this week when first, the Bar Association and then principal Family Court judge Peter Boshier came out swinging.
The Bar Association was upset because National MP Murray McCully had the temerity to suggest that Solicitor-General Terence Arnold was not a wise choice as an appellate judge. McCully's charge was that Arnold had questions of bias about him. That he had approved the prosecutions of Nats Shane Ardern and Nick Smith, but rejected similar action against Labour's art pretender Helen Clark and tennis ball-stuffer David Benson-Pope.
Retired appeal court judge Ted Thomas even called the attack "grossly unfair". It would not help recruit lawyers to the judiciary, Thomas harrumphed, if they were to be attacked by "disgruntled politicians".
The Bar Association said McCully was a blight, and Terence Arnold was the Mother Teresa of their profession. He just charged more.
Boshier's spleen was directed at the Families Need Fathers lobby group, which had engaged in a "personal vendetta" against his colleagues. They were protesting outside the judges' homes. How dare they!
It's time for these legal suits to get a grip. Family Court judges get grief because some of their decision-making is questionable. There is a tendency to think that fathers denied visitation don't require the same judicial intervention as their partners require in seeking non-molestation orders.
McCully is correct to challenge the credentials of one who has made subjective decisions about prosecution of parliamentarians. He may be wrong - Arnold may well become one of the country's most able jurists. But the appointment of such individuals to such powerful positions does demand scrutiny. Judges need to be accountable too.
Most relationship breakdowns are messy. Especially those involving children, because you're still required to interact with a partner who may have rejected, betrayed or disappointed you - or whom you may have rejected, betrayed or disappointed.
But Courts Minister Rick Barker thinks that he has the answer. He's going to send you a video. A trial on the North Shore has suggested state intervention in relationship break-ups can reduce negative consequences for the kids. A couple of seminars, and a video on "how to be a better ex-partner", and much of the stress is going to be removed from those poor Family Court judges.
And the government is serious about it too. The programme is worth $6 million. Barker says 97% of couples who volunteered for the pilot think that such courses should be compulsory. Yes, volunteered. In other words, they were already quite happy to sit down and chat with their ex-partner about the kids. Like, they had an issue in the first place.
And there's the whole problem about government social policy wrapped up in one execution. Middle-class white people in Wellington designing something for middle-class white people on the Shore. Of course, it must work for the rest of the country.
Maybe judges are not the last bastion of professional privilege. That place is still reserved for liberal bureaucrats living in Wellington.
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