Archive for December 2017
The secret Law Society Disciplinary Committees
December 18, 2017 | 
Author 
Following on from the previous post
As we saw the law society nurtures and disciplines its own members, this can be like the mother of a very spoilt child , if the child is a favourite its a case of Now Johnny you go and be a good boy mummy will be very cross if you do that again . or if the child is not liked a step child or a foreign lawyer for example then there will be a crucifixion so that a message is sent to the others and to show that the system is working .
The disciplinary side of the law society is undertaken through statute, the lawyers and conveyancers act .
The conflicting roles of the law society are set in statute .. statute is written by lawyers and as with the animal welfare Act, there is concrete evidence that statutes are written and advised on by lawyers .
(The animal welfare act , no 1 bill was written by Barrister Neil Wells to facilitate his own business plan, he advised on this as independent advisor to the select committee without declaring his conflict of interest )
The resulting swiss cheese legislation has sufficient holes for the lawyers to crawl through and evade the intention of the law.
section 65 sets out the Regulatory functions
The regulatory functions of the New Zealand Law Society are—
(a)to control and regulate the practice in New Zealand by barristers and by barristers and solicitors of the profession of the law:
(b)to uphold the fundamental obligations imposed on lawyers who provide regulated services in New Zealand:
(c)to monitor and enforce the provisions of this Act, and of any regulations and rules made under it, that relate to the regulation of lawyers:
(d)to monitor and enforce, throughout the period specified in any order made under section 390, the provisions of this Act, and of any regulations and rules made under it, that relate to the regulation of conveyancers:
(e)to assist and promote, for the purpose of upholding the rule of law and facilitating the administration of justice in New Zealand, the reform of the law.
It is my experience that the law society is very poor at holding lawyers accountable to the rule of Law and that is where our entire justice system falls down . Close enough is not good enough , lawyers are officers of the court and as such have higher obligations to truth and honesty than the average Joe Bloggs , and we all know that many lawyers don’t know the definition of truth.
In a recent decision from the law society the society stated that
“The lawyer is an agent for the client in conducting the client’s affairs. The lawyer is obliged to follow the instructions of the client where it is consistent with their professional duties. The lawyer has a duty of absolute loyalty to the client and may not have regard for the interests of third parties except insofar as they are consistent with his or her own instructions and relevant to the protection and promotion of the interests of his or her own client.”
This may be true but this is surely limited to being an officer of the court first this is spelled out in section 4 of the act
the obligation to protect, subject to his or her overriding duties as an officer of the High Court and to his or her duties under any enactment, the interests of his or her clients.
This to me at least makes it clear that the lawyers primary obligations are to the court and he has a duty not to mislead the court or to use the court for an improper purpose .
Time and time again we see that lawyers are not being held accountable to the rule of law and because they know that this particular bit of the rules is purposely overlooked they use it to abuse the use of the court.
In these hard time of lawyers being paid upward of $250 per hour its about winning , no matter how. When a group of people are backing each other up and no one is being held accountable to the rule of law then injustice reigns.
As a result it is our observation that the new Zealand courts have become extremely unsafe .
When a lawyer steps out of line the first step is to make a complaint to the law society .
We made a complaint against a lawyer in April 2016, the quote above came from the decision which was delivered by an anonymous group of people represented with the name and signature of only one barrister who signed the decision on 28 November 2017 .
Law society disciplinary committees are made up of up to seven lawyer members and two lay members , however the standards committees appear to work from a position of total anonymity aside from a requirement to notify the minister of the appointment
Standards committees are set up under section 126 of the act , they appear to be are totally anonymous and are in reality not a legal structure which is capable of being sued or suing, but they are regularly represented in court proceedings as if they have every right of a legal or natural person .
Standard committees in effect are nothing more than a trading name given to a group of unidentified persons , at best it is an unincorporated group and the rules in law dictate that they should be treated as naming the individuals as members of the what ever trust or committee.
The decisions of the committees are listed here look at them the majority have the lawyers names anonymised despite the fact that many lawyers who have come to their attention have committed real crimes and have never been held accountable in another court .
There is a good chance that the lawyers on the disciplinary committees are connected to the lawyer under review due to them belonging to a secondary alliance whihc many law firms have formed for example
NZ LAW Limited which is according to the companies office jointly owned by 55 lawyers , this from this link 
This is not the only law firm made up of many others , there are also LAW ALLIANCE NZ LIMITED 34 share holders and LARGE LAW FIRMS GROUP LIMITED 9 share holders and probably more .
All in all there is nothing at all transparent about the disciplinary process , it behind closed doors and as seen with the example takes a very long time for a complain to come out the other end 1 year 7 months in the example above .
the decision is delivered with this note
“Decisions of the Standards Committee must remain confidential between the parties unless the Standards Committee directs otherwise. The Standards Committee has made no such direction in relation to this matter.“
But despite the fact that they decide to back their lawyer members up for not complying with the rule of law there is an avenue open to appeal their decision and that is through the LCRO and that is even more fascinating.. to be continued
Posted in 
Why the New Zealand justice system is prone to corruption
Has any one else noticed that the New Zealand Law society appears to be at the centre of every thing in New Zealand .
It has more power than government as its members are the advisers to government and local bodies and the judges are selected from the membership by another member or former member. In the last government Christopher Francis Finlayson QC member of the NZ law society and Attorney-General selected fellow members to be judges. His recommendations was accepted by the governor_general
In all over the years he appointed the majority of our judges this from Kiwi’s first
this from the Courts of New Zealand web page
it goes on to say that “Judges have been appointed whose career paths have not been those of the conventional court advocate.”
and ” The appointment process followed by the Attorney-General is not prescribed by any statute or regulation.”
Many years ago I heard a presentation by Anthony Molloy QC who hit the nail on the head when he said ” nothing is going to change until one day a judge, while playing golf is hit on the head by a golf ball. Requiring urgent brain surgery he arrives in theatre to find that there are no brain surgeons available , but the staff reassure him that the surgeon a highly qualified and respected Gynecologist . They are all doctors after all.”
A list of judges of the high court is shown here all those appointed after 2008 were recommended by Finlayson 30 out of a total of 39 justices
Of the 7 associate judges four were recommended by Finlayson.
Appointment of judges in the UK
the head of the court is of course the Queen it is her court , in days of old the king/queen would be the ultimate decision maker and was advised by the knights templar and secular . Below crown was the privy council , the crowns closest advisors and this has over the years become this highest appellate court , but New zealand did away with this and the question therfor eis are they still the queens court ehan the queen and her advisors have no role to play.
They effectively did away with the system that we still hold on to . A system which lacks transparency and independence.
The New Zealand Law society
A judge has to have held a practicing certificate for at least 7 years and generally those appointed to the bench leave the law society to take on their position and if they leave the bench they will again become a member of the law society .
The New Zealand Law society has the conflicting roles of regulatory and nurturing for barristers and solicitors alike .
In the UK these duties are split between a regulatory authority such as the solicitors regulatory authority for regulatory matters and the law society for support assistance and nurturing of the lawyers who are solicitors. The lawyers who are Barristers belong to a bar council or one of the four inns of court and are regulated by the bar standards Board
why do we think The New Zealand justice system is open to corruption? well this is a serial you will have to drop back and read our stories of the lack of transparency and the vast disparity between the ways lawyers are treated and how others are treated