Mahvash Ikram The Department of Corrections is inviting lawyers to participate in a survey seeking feedback about access to clients in custody after years of complaints from counsel who say contacting defendants on remand is an ongoing challenge. Waikato-based defence lawyer Thomas Sutcliffe says the most significant issue arises when a prisoner is moved to a different facility without anybody notifying their lawyer. “This means you may have people representing clients in the Waikato who ha...| Law News
Neil Sands Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann has warned the court system is under significant stress, with both judges and lawyers struggling under high workloads that are contributing to delays delivering justice. In her annual report, Winkelmann bluntly outlines the resource constraints facing the judiciary, saying there are not enough judges or courtrooms. “The judiciary is committed to timely access to justice, but does not control all of the necessary levers,” she says. “This rep...| Law News
Neil Sands Opposition leader Chris Hipkins says he has learned from past mistakes and will avoid wholesale repeal of coalition policies if Labour wins next year’s election, ending the economically damaging stop-start cycle that incoming leaders typically follow. Hipkins famously began his tenure as prime minister in 2023 with a “policy bonfire”, ditching or significantly altering predecessor Jacinda Ardern’s positions on everything from climate change to compulsory income insuranc...| Law News
Neil Sands The Law Commission wants to expand anti-discrimination laws to include transgender, intersex and non-binary people, saying the reform would bring New Zealand into line with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Human Rights Act currently bans discrimination on grounds such as sex, race, sexual orientation and disability, but does not specify gender identity. A Law Commission report released on Thursday recommends adding two new prohibited grounds of discrimination to sectio...| Law News
David Harvey If an obscure Florida convict named Clarence Earl Gideon had not sat down in his prison cell …to write a letter to the Supreme Court…the vast machinery of American law would have gone on functioning undisturbed. But Gideon did write that letter, the Court did look into his case…and the whole course of American legal history has been changed. (Robert F Kennedy) I have a well-thumbed, often-read book on my shelves called Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis. It came my way in ...| Law News
Mahvash Ikram Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka has defended the government’s new guidelines on emergency housing, saying that tighter access is not disadvantaging rough sleepers and people living without proper shelter. Under the guidelines, introduced in August 2024, Ministry of Social Development (MSD) staff can deny emergency housing applications where they believed the person had contributed to his or her own circumstances. But Potaka said MSD still approves most applications in i...| Law News
Mahvash Ikram Asian parties who take their disputes to court face language barriers that risk unfair outcomes because judges rely on interpreters who are often not up to the job, says barrister Mai Chen, the President of the NZ Asian Lawyers Association. These interpreters can be unreliable and inaccurate, says Chen, who spoke to LawNews after the recent conference Mediating between and with Asian parties in dispute in Auckland, partly sponsored by The Law Association. “I am concerned that ...| Law News
Jenni McManus The Employment Court has again called out what it describes as the ‘unprofessional’ and ‘abusive’ conduct of a prominent employment advocate, with the latest rebuke coming from Judge Kathryn Beck in a decision involving the advocate, Lawrence Anderson, and barrister Catherine Stewart. Stewart, the convenor of The Law Association’s Employment Law Committee, had sued Anderson personally for indemnity costs after she was hit with an application for non-party discovery, br...| Law News
Neil Sands Increasing the number of women appearing as senior counsel in New Zealand’s higher courts will happen only if the legal profession can persuade clients, particularly large corporates, to broaden their hiring policies, experts have told LawNews. They said that resolving the gender disparity, highlighted in a New Zealand Bar Association (NZBA) study, will also require the profession’s elite – mostly men – to proactively step aside and give women more opportunities in the high...| Law News
Mahvash Ikram Five unions are expected to file a claim in the High Court today, accusing the government of Bill of Rights Act violations arising from changes to pay equity law that has aborted 33 live claims, affecting 180,000 workers. Represented by Rodney Harrison KC and Peter Cranney, the five plaintiffs are the Nurses Union, PSA, PPTA, NZEI and the Tertiary Education Union. Collectively, the group had lodged 24 of the 33 now-terminated pay equity claims. Harrison and Cranney also acted fo...| Law News
The official news platform for The Law Association delivers the latest news, case summaries, legislation and legal updates from around New Zealand 24/7.| Law News
Neil Sands Outgoing Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says New Zealand’s reputation as a world leader in transparency is slipping as officials increasingly seek legislative “carve-outs” from the Official Information Act (OIA) that hamper public scrutiny of government actions. In an interview with LawNews, Boshier also offered scathing assessments of Health New Zealand’s “disgraceful” attitude to OIA compliance and the Corrections Department’s “glacial” response to urgently nee...| Law News
