Beleaguered Supreme Court judge Justice Bill Wilson will have to face an independent panel to determine if he can keep his job.If agreed to, the panel would require Justice Wilson (pictured) to argue why he should keep his job as a judge on New Zealand's
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Beleaguered Supreme Court judge Justice Bill Wilson will have to face an independent panel to determine if he can keep his job.
If agreed to, the panel would require Justice Wilson (pictured) to argue why he should keep his job as a judge on New Zealand’s highest court.
Until now, Justice Wilson has remained on the bench of the Supreme Court deliberating significant cases despite the high level investigation.
After a five-month probe Judicial Conduct Commissioner Sir David Gascoigne has recommended to the attorney-general that a judicial conduct panel be appointed to inquire in the conduct of Justice Wilson.
Justice Wilson was at the centre of a judicial probity scandal that has embarrassed New Zealand’s highest courts following his failure to recuse himself from a conflict of interest wrangle never before seen in New Zealand. (See backgrounder link).
Following a Supreme Court decision in late 2009 overturning a Court of Appeal case Justice Wilson deliberated on in 2007, three complaints were lodged with the JCC sparking an investigation into his conduct.
So important and high level was the Justice Wilson case, Sir David brought in the legal expertise of former Australian chief justice Murray Gleeson to help with the preliminary investigation.
Sir David said in his report that the complaints concerning Justice Wilson’s conduct went beyond the scope of the initial Court of Appeal case. If the complaints had been contained to conduct up to and during the hearing of the case, it would have been open to him to refer the matter to the chief justice.
“The position is different, however, when there are added aspect of the complains insofar as they relate to the judge’s conduct in the period leading to the delivery of the [first] Supreme Court decision,” he said.
“It is hard to see how a preliminary examination can take these issues further.”
The general complaints about Justice Wilson’s conduct referred to:
the nature and extent of the disclosure he made before the hearing of a case before him in the Court of Appeal between superfine wool producer Saxmere Company and the Wool Board Disestablishment Company (Disco); that he did not recuse himself from sitting on the hearing; and his conduct in relation to the later Supreme Court proceedings.
Sir David’s 30 page decision is convention breaking. “This is an important matter involving, as it does, a judge who is now a member of New Zealand’s highest court.
“In most cases, the commissioner does not release a decision, or the reasons for it, publicly,” he said.
“However, I have decided that, in this instance, I ought to make public my decision and the reasoning behind it.”
Sir David said the Judicial Conduct Panel Act’s opening words of section four states its purpose is to “enhance public confidence in, and to protect the impartiality of, the judicial system.”
Judges' spin doctor Neil Billington said in a statement that Justice Wilson intends to speak with the Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias early next week and would make no further comment.
