NZBA Address the Court at Swearing in of Associate Judge Peter Andrew

Address by Simon Foote, on behalf of the New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te Ture, on the occasion of the swearing in of Associate Judge Peter Andrew at the High Court at Auckland on 23 March 2018

Tihei Mauri ora!

E ngā mana e ngā reo huri noa o tenei whare, tēnā koutou katoa.

He mihi ki a koe Te Kaiwhakawā Tumuaki o Aotearoa arā, the Rt Hon. Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias, Associate Judge Peter Andrew, a ngā mihi ki a koutou nga Kaiwhakawa o ngā kōti

o Aotearoa.
 
Let there be life!
To the esteemed people all gathered here in this Court today, I acknowledge and greet you all.
I wish to acknowledge The Right Honourable Chief Justice of New Zealand, Dame Sian Elias, Associate Judge Peter Andrew, and my greetings to all the judges of the Courts of New Zealand.

Your Honour, The New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te Ture is delighted at your appointment as an Associate Judge and it is my privilege to extend to you the warmest congratulations from the members of the Bar.

I am conscious that I follow three excellent addresses that have related your exemplary career comprehensively. But there are four aspects of your career at the Bar and your suitability for your new role that I wish to touch upon briefly.

First, your Honour’s experience as an Adjudicator

Few, if any, practitioners come to the bench with the significant experience as an adjudicator that you have. In your time as a member of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority and Weathertight Homes Tribunal you have produced over a dozen judgments on complex legal and factual issues that are noted for their clarity and the efficient nature in which they were delivered following the conclusion of hearings.

These tribunals inevitably involve managing and determining complex proceedings often with multiple parties. In addition, and more so perhaps than some commercial litigation, refugees and weathertight homes complainants come to the process as particularly  inexperienced and vulnerable participants, at their wits end. Your Honour has demonstrated the ability to deal with all parties to litigation firmly, fairly and clearly but also with empathy, attention to detail and diligence.

Moreover and importantly, through your experience as an adjudicator in these fora you have gained experience as to how judicial bodies function well and you have gained a reputation for procedural expedition. This experience will be invaluable in your new role as an Associate Judge, which as the Bar knows well, provides much of the oil for the wheels of justice in the High Court.

Secondly, your Honour’s patent intellect, integrity, honesty and humility

These values are the most valuable – indeed essential – attributes for a successful career at the Bar and Bench equally. To my personal knowledge and in my research for this address these values are the first aspects of Your Honour’s character and experience acknowledged by all. Three aspects of your career illustrate the esteem in which you are held in this regard:

• Your reputation for mentoring and encouraging junior members of the bar, both in your chambers, and as Mr Jones mentioned, evident from the way you relate to and encourage junior counsel in your team and on the other side.
• Your Honour’s multiple appointments as amicus in public law and human rights cases speaks volumes as to the esteem in which your intellect, honesty and integrity are held by the Courts.
• The same values are plainly at the forefront of the reasons for which you were appointed to investigate allegations of corruption in the public service on three occasions, including the well-known Scampi fishery inquiry.

Thirdly, your renown experience and ability as an Advocate

Excellence in advocacy is at the heart of the Bar Association’s mission. So it has particular reason to rejoice when an advocate of your Honour’s skill and experience is appointed to a judicial role.

The Chief Justice, the Solicitor-General and Mr Jones have all mentioned the exceptional depth of your experience in advocacy across a wide variety of fields of law – judicial review, human rights, immigration, employment, criminal, Treaty of Waitangi, as well as commercial and trust litigation – in an almost incomparable number of different fora – the Maori Land Court, Waitangi Tribunal, Employment Courts, Immigration and Refugee Tribunals, The High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and the Privy Council.

Rather than repeat what has already ben said, perhaps I can share an anecdote related to me, which illustrates perfectly your unruffled mastery of advocacy in an appearance before what was New Zealand’s Highest Court:

• Your Honour was in London to appear at the Privy Council on the Maori Electoral Option case (with Ellen France J and Sian Elias CJ), but you were also instructed by the Crown to appear as lead counsel on an application for special leave to appeal in a criminal matter involving the entry of the offender through a window into a residence.
• You had not previously been involved with the case, but I hear you were assured it was straightforward and unlikely that the Crown would be called upon.
• You must have been somewhat surprised and perhaps concerned when Lord Keith of Kinkel began by explaining that concerns about the safety of the conviction required their Lordships to hear from the Crown first.
• Your Honour was not long into submissions before their Lordships when Lord Keith interrupted again to inquire as to the dimensions of the window through which the offender was alleged to have accessed the house. You did not know the answer to this question, but keen to assist the Court by any means possible, you answered his Lordship by putting your hands together – as if perhaps in prayer – and as you slowly drew them apart, said, “my learned friend will no doubt stop me when I get to the correct size”.
• The real punchline is that despite the late call up in an unfamiliar case and a grilling by their Lordships, the Crown was successful – in large part thanks to your unshakeable composure, and imaginative and persuasive advocacy.

Fourthly and finally, your Honour’s commitment to clients and collegiality to colleagues

You have been at Eldon Chambers since 1999. Originally founded by Brad Giles QC, Jim Farmer QC and Stuart Grieve QC; you shared with Stuart and Paul David QC for much of your time there.

They told me how your clients frequently brought gifts to chambers for you with thanks for fighting for them and improving – even, in their words, saving – their lives. There is perhaps no greater accolade than a client who feels that way about his or her advocate.

Your chambers colleagues also told me how much they valued your warmth, humanity, patience and humour, which I know are sentiments shared throughout the Bar. You will be missed at the bar, but our loss is the gain of your new judicial colleagues.

The Bar has no doubt that your Honour will be a first class judge and we all look forward to appearing before you.

Heoi ano ra, rau Rangatira ma, huri noa, huri noa o tenei whare
Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou katoa.