Friday, October 29, 2021

Tony Ellis ups the ante in the Callinicos affair

The Callinicos affair – or should that be the Callinicos scandal? – continues to simmer, no matter how much the judicial establishment might want it to evaporate.

Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the background. There’s a good summary here, but to recap briefly: Hawke’s Bay Family Court judge Peter Callinicos made himself unpopular by upsetting Oranga Tamariki social workers with his no-nonsense questioning (entirely justified, in the circumstances) during the racially sensitive “Moana” custody case, and subsequently appears to have been stitched up by senior judges who disapproved of the way he conducted proceedings.

In the latest development, Wellington barrister and human rights specialist Tony Ellis has advised Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann, Attorney-General David Parker and Judicial Conduct Commissioner Alan Ritchie that he has complained to the UN’s Rapporteur (which in this context means investigator) on Judicial Independence.

Such complaints are usually treated as confidential, but Ellis has very deliberately made his public, saying he wants to generate wider debate.

He stresses that his focus is on deficiencies in the system rather than on the judges involved. In particular, Ellis calls for a more independent means of appointing the judiciary and argues that the present system, where the Attorney-General recommends all appointments, is too susceptible to political influence.

But what gives his complaint a special piquancy is that Winkelmann, her deputy Sir William (Willie) Young – the two most powerful figures in the judicial system – are themselves implicated in the Callinicos affair, as is Ritchie. Ellis has formally alleged in a complaint to the police that Winkelmann and Young were parties to a breach of judicial independence through their involvement in behind-the-scenes discussions about Callinicos, who was given no opportunity to defend himself.

For his part, Ritchie is in Ellis’s cross-hairs because of his dismissal – again, without any input from Callinicos – of concerns about the way the so-called Heads of Bench, Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu and Chief Family Court Judge Jackie Moran, intervened in the Moana case in apparent breach of the principle that judges are masters in their own courts. Ellis called on Ritchie to recuse himself from further consideration of the case, arguing that he had irrevocably compromised his independence.

What seems remarkable is that Ritchie himself has no judicial experience. He’s a former executive director of the Law Society – in other words, a fully paid-up member of the club – and a panel convenor on the Parole Board. Ellis describes him as a “junior official” with limited powers. A retired senior lawyer of my acquaintance was mystified as to how Ritchie got the job of assessing complaints against top judges, to whom – human nature being what it is – he’s likely to be subservient.  

As for Ellis, I’ve no doubt he’s regarded as a pest and a self-publicist by many members of the legal and judicial establishment. But society sometimes needs pests – especially when they lift rocks to see what’s hiding underneath, or shine a torch into the darkness at the back of the cave.

The judicial establishment is formidably opaque. It functions as a closed shop, operating on a nod-and-wink basis, and gives the impression of being as allergic to sunlight as a vampire. Hardly any outsiders can claim to know how it functions or on what basis its members are appointed.

Almost alone in an otherwise generally transparent democracy, it is largely immune to public scrutiny. Considering the power of the courts, this is a potentially dangerous anomaly. It means that public trust in the system hinges entirely on the notion that judges always behave impartially and with absolute integrity, which seems a naïvely optimistic assumption.

Footnote: National's Shadow Attorney-General, Chris Penk, has weighed in on the controversy. You can read him here

 

 

8 comments:

  1. Ka pai Tony Ellis. I have always had total admiration for him. He takes on important human rights cases nobody else will touch, and wins. For example, the Paremoremo prisoners held in appalling, inhumane conditions in solitary confinement for month after year.

    Unfortunately, I don't think Tony will get support from the UN Rapporteur. The entire background of the UN special rapporteurs is to support the very kind of people Judge Callinicos excoriated in the Moana case and others. I very much doubt that the UN Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers will do anything but find against Judge Callinicos and congratulate Oranga Tamariki, Alan Ritchie, Justice Winkelman, Justice Young and all the rest of them for their stand against "colonialism," which I suspect will be the wig used to cover this.

    I hope by making such a bold prediction that I will be proved wrong, but I am not holding my breath while I wait.

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  2. David,
    Ha! I should hand over this blog to you.

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  3. We have had two judges recently overturning Common Law in favour of "Tikanga Maori" in relation to claims under the Marine and Coastal Areas Act. By doing so they have made a nonsense of the Act and opened the possibility of the entire New Zealand coastline being given over to tribal authority. The appointment of judges is a political plaything in this country. They undergo no public scrutiny as far as I'm aware. Is there any scope for appointments to be approved and reviewed by Parliament's Justice Committee?

    And good on Tony Ellis, although I have absolutely no faith in the UN.

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  4. Odysseus,
    I don't think anyone in their right mind has any faith in the UN. But if Ellis's complaint keeps the issue alive and causes a bit more embarrassment for the judges, it will have served its purpose.

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  5. To Simon, who posted a not-for-publication comment yesterday: Thanks. Points noted.

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  6. To "Unknown": I understand your anger, but phrases such as "immoral turds" don't quite meet the acceptability test when they relate to identifiable people.

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  7. I don't know how to email this info to you Karl, but how about Irony Supreme for starters?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/300443832/tova-obrien-quits-newshub-for-new-talk-radio-gig

    I'm taking wagers on what political flavour this "new-talk" radio will push, and where the money is coming from.

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  8. To hughvane: Thanks for drawing attention to this. The article refers to fines imposed by the Broadcasting Standards Authority against MediaWorks for two of its announcers/interviewers on its Magic Talk radio channel. John Banks dared to make comments seen to be 'denigrating to Maori culture' while Sean Plunket dared to ask hard questions of one of the Maori activists involved in blocking public roads to protect Maori 'borders' during the COVID19 lockdown periods. So the Broadcasting Standards Authority, which has happily condoned all manner of anti-male sexism (such as Radio NZ's encouragement of the concept of 'toxic masculinity', a complaint about which was dismissed) and I don't think has ever found a problem with anti-white racism, is now censoring opinion and interviews that might contradict the dishonesty the public is being fed about such things as pre-European Maori civilization, post-colonial NZ history, Maori imprisonment rates being due to discrimination and not to higher rates of offending, and the various fake 'principles' of Te Tiriti.

    The 'rebranded' Magic Talk channel will no doubt join the rest of NZ's mainstream media in becoming part of the team of $55 million, i.e. bribed to support this government's racial propaganda. Such political corruption is hard to believe would ever be seen in NZ.

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