Speech: 'Rough Ride for Lawyers' - Rahui Katene

It’s been a rough ride to the end of the year for lawyers in Manukau.

A fortnight ago Dame Margaret Bazley released a damning review alleging that the justice system had been undermined by more than two hundred corrupt lawyers who were 'gaming' the legal aid system.

The breaking-news revelation was that Dame Margaret revealed that she had been told that up to 80% of lawyers at the Manukau District Court were in this category.

Since then all hell has broke loose.

Seventeen Manukau based lawyers penned a letter to The Herald and to Justice Minister Simon Power.

Four members of the Legal Services Agency resigned, and yesterday we learnt that their Chief Executive, Tim Bannatyne, had lost his job in the ongoing haemorrhaging of the legal aid system.

The Maori Party welcomed the opportunity to look critically at the legal aid system to ensure it is of the highest quality, that it is being accessed by those who need it most, and in a way that is cost-effective and sustainable.

But we take seriously the challenge of John Marsh, the President of the New Zealand Law Society that we must work together to ensure that hard-earned reputations of lawyers for honesty and integrity are not scarred by the aftermath of such a critical review.

The Law Society is concerned that some of the more inflammatory findings – including those for Manukau – are based on anecdotal evidence rather than factual information. And so they are encouraging lawyers to notify the Society about any unacceptable practices, to lay a complaint, to provide a confidential report.

I commend the courage and commitment of legal practitioners to work quickly to respond to the claims and to do all that they can to restore confidence in the wider legal system.

This is a pivotal time for the legal profession as a whole, to demonstrate what I know to be true – that the great majority of legal aid lawyers are people of the highest integrity and the utmost dedication.

It is a time also to gather around those working in the Manukau Court, to provide the support they need to provide the highest standard of service to their clients.

No-one could fail to be moved by the accounts of the seventeen lawyers as they described the stress of lives lived by their clients – the chaos of lives affected by drug and alcohol addictions, by poverty and violence, by issues with communication.

It makes for even more compassion when we hear the stories of what Dame Margaret experienced at courts, including small children spending hours in crowded reception areas, waiting for their parents to appear in Court.

We must do all that we can to support the people of Manukau, and the lawyers who serve them, to achieve the balance needed to ensure speedy and quality access to justice.

Finally, I have to air my heartfelt fear that I would be concerned if out of this whole episode, legal aid is restricted to civil cases and criminal legal aid thrown out.

I have a longstanding passion for the vital difference that criminal legal aid can make.

Back in 1973 my father, John Hippolite, and Dr Oliver Sutherland provided a paper, Justice and Race: a mono-cultural system in a multicultural society. The paper revealed that official statistics about interpersonal violence and ethnicity may often be biased as a result of the social and legal processes by which individuals come to official attention.

This was groundbreaking analysis – one of the first reports which dared to suggest that Maori offenders are more likely to be detected and classified as offenders in our justice system.

It came from a time when Dad was chair of the Nelson Maori Committee and Dr Sutherland was secretary of the Nelson Race Relations Action Group. They were concerned about the numbers of young Maori appearing before the Court and being sent to borstal without ever having the benefit of legal representation.

That report informed policy on issues of racism in the court system; and it established the very first system of legal aid.

We must not walk away from that legacy, a legacy which reminds all New Zealanders that even the most vulnerable of our citizens deserve the justice of their day in court.