Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

Lawyers for a judge accused of disrupting a New Zealand First event want clarity over the legal test which will apply at her judicial conduct hearing.

A judicial conduct panel is looking into the behaviour of Acting District Court Judge Ema Aitken.

She is accused of interrupting a New Zealand First function at the exclusive Northern Club in Auckland last year in November, allegedly shouting that leader Winston Peters was lying.

Judge Aitken has argued she did not shout, that she did not recognise Peters’ voice and did not know it was a political event.

A bid she made for a judicial review of the decision to hold the Judicial Conduct Panel was dismissed in April of this year at the High Court in Auckland.

‘What is the test’

Under the District Court Act, a Governor-General can, on the advice of the Attorney-General, remove a Judge from the office on the grounds of inability or misbehaviour.

The Judicial Conduct Panel will consider Judge Aitken’s behaviour at a hearing in February next year. It will determine facts, and write a report to the Attorney-General including about whether the removal of the Judge is justified.

The panel is comprised of former Court of Appeal Judge Brendan Brown KC (who is the chair), Justice Jillian Mallon, a sitting Court of Appeal Judge, and Sir Jerry Mateparae, the former Governor-General.

In a preliminary hearing on Monday, counsel for Judge Aitken, David Jones KC, told the panel it was essential to know what the specific legal test for misbehaviour was.

“We are asking you to state the test, in advance of the hearing.

“You have to have something to aim at, you have to have something to establish.

“And here we have the difference – for example – between misconduct and misbehaviour, and we have to know how aggregious that has to be, in order for the contemplation of removal to be considered.”

Jones KC said it was essential to understand the legal test before the hearing took place, because it could affect the arguments or context the evidence is presented in at the hearing.

“You have a situation where if you have a test, and you know that you have to satisfy that test, or special counsel has to satisfy that test, then evidence can be adduced – potentially from experts to say – ‘look this is certain behaviour but it doesn’t get to this point, or it does’, or whatever.”

He said it was even more important these issues were nailed down in what he described as a “political context”, referring to how the report from the Northern Club was leaked to the media.

Jones KC said the hearing would need to establish Judge Aitken knew of the political context when she spoke – not what she, as a judge, ought to have known.

He said the political dynamic was critical to the hearing that would take place.

“If, for example, the people in the room… were a group of law students, or were from a book club, or whatever, and somebody said something as the words were spoken, and heard by the Judge, and she said something, would we be here? My submission is we wouldn’t.”

Special counsel Jonathan Orpin-Dowell, who is one of two lawyers presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel, said the question of what the Judge knew or should have known when she spoke needed to come out in the evidence in the hearing.

He said parliament didn’t intend to set out a specific test for judicial misbehaviour.

Orpin-Dowell said the District Court Act lays out the grounds for removal as inability or misbehaviour.

He referred to Ministry of Justice advice to the 2004 select committee considering the law setting up the judicial panel, which aimed to avoid any potential misbehaviour from being excluded.

He said thresholds of misbehaviour come down to specific facts and situations.

“The panel isn’t a permanent court, or even a permanent tribunal, it’s an ad-hoc panel set up to deal with a particular reference about particular conduct, from a particular Judge, and it follows from that, that whether removal will be justified in any case is necessarily a question of fact and degree.”

Both lawyers referred to a previous case involving Justice Bill Wilson, where it found misbehaviour was conduct that “fell so far short of accepted standards of judicial behaviour as to warrant the ultimate sanction of removal”.

This is the third Judicial Conduct Panel that has been established since the law establishing the body was passed in 2004.

Elements of discussion in Monday’s preliminary hearing have been suppressed.

The panel is expected to file a decision on Monday’s application by the end of this week.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Oranga Tamariki says it learnt a lot from the coalition’s boot camp trial, but documents seen by RNZ show many of those lessons were identifed more than a decade ago and shared with the programme designers.

Emails show a ministry evaluation of “military-style activity camps” run in 2009 and 2010 was sent to Oranga Tamariki staff in March 2024 as they were preparing National’s promised boot camp pilot.

“Probably not telling you anything you don’t already know but it’s a good summary of previous work done in this space and highlights the lessons that we can learn from the earlier work,” the email read.

The document summarising the main findings presented it as a “focus on findings that could inform the design and establishment Military Style Academies and help mitigate or avoid potential pitfalls”.

Among the lessons to learn were: rushed implementation, a lack of clarity around roles, inadequate information, training and resource, better engagement with whānau and a need to involve iwi services.

Many of the same themes are present in the final independent evaluation of the government’s latest military-style academy pilot, released in early November.

For example, while it noted “meaningful and positive change” for the young people, it named various challenges: rushed implementation, challenging transitions, a lack of continuity around therapeutic support, a lack of capacity in the residential phase, the need to engage with mana whenua earlier and support for whānau began too late before the rangatahi returned home.

The opposition parties say it’s proof the government is simply recycling old failures, but Oranga Tamariki insists it did take on board lessons from the earlier programmes.

Opposition hits out

Labour’s children spokesperson, Willow-Jean Prime, said the emails proved the government had “sunk millions into an experiment that has repeated the same failures of the past”.

She said the pilot was a “disgrace and utter waste of time” which the government had rushed through for “political headlines”.

“We need real, proven wrap-around interventions that work, not failed experiments that take us back down a road of harm.”

The Green Party’s youth and corrections spokesperson, Tamatha Paul, said the pilot had been an “enormous waste of time and resource”.

“Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is insanity,” she said.

“The international and domestic evidence shows clearly that this approach does not lead to reduced re-offending. The far more effective and cheaper intervention is resourcing community-based kaupapa to support rangatahi in their neighbourhoods.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the government had obviously failed to learn any lessons from its “experments”.

“This information confirms what we already knew to be true: boot camps and punishment have never been the solution for our tamariki,” she said.

The government’s response

In a statement, Minister for Children Karen Chhour told RNZ she strongly believed the pilot had been a success. She said the review reflected that, while also acknowledging opportunities for improvement.

“The reality for our young serious offenders is that they are on a pathway to adult Corrections and a lifetime in-and-out of incarceration unless they are given a chance to turn their lives around and take that chance. This programme has been that chance.”

Chhour said social workers and mentor teams had put a “huge amount of work” into supporting the nine young people and their 29 sibilings, including helping them access housing, education and health assessments.

She said the pilot was reviewed while it was underway and its successes had helped the government achieve its target of reducing serious and persistent youth offending “a half decade early”.

Military-Style Academy programmes lead Janet Mays provided RNZ with a statement, insisting that the agency did consider the previous evaluation when designing the new pilot and took “several lessons” into account.

Mays said officials also took on board “the findings of a thorough literature review on a range of intervention programmes for young offenders”.

Asked why many of the same difficulties were identified in the latest programme, Mays acknowledged a short timeframe had “impacted some outcomes”.

She said the community transition phase could be strengthened and Oranga Tamariki had acknowledged mana whenua should have been involved in the design of the pilot earlier.

But Mays said the pilot was well-resourced, and kaimahi had “good role clarity in residence” and received “two weeks of intensive training” before the programme’s launch.

She said the therapeutic intervention offered in the residency phase was “extensive” and showed improvements.

“The MSA Pilot was a new initiative that aimed to help a small group of serious and persistent young offenders turn their lives around by providing them with increased structure, support and opportunities.

“We have learnt a lot from this pilot, which will strengthen and shape how we best support rangatahi in the future.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand