judiciary
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 
Lets put justice back in New Zealand
Open letter / OIA to Minister of Justice
This letter has been published on www.Transparency.net.nz and broadcasted via social media
I also refer to a previous open letter to you “What justice system “ and statement you made in this news article where you stated “it’s a court of law not a court of justice”.
I have become aware through being sued in our courts for speaking the truth and for exposing serious corruption that our courts are on a par with our casinos.Except that our casinos have more security issues in place to prevent abuse.
We apparently fare no better than the Wild West it appears to be a free for all in our courts with no ENFORCEABLE systems or processes to give those taken to court any protection .
When truth and evidence are not factors we cannot have justice. The justice sector by not providing prosecutions for perjury is failing the people
It appears to me, that the course of justice has been averted. Those in the middle income group who own their own houses are a very good target. Their houses are now worth going after and what better way than to bring a massive financial burden on to them, costs which no one can possibly budget for.
This means that those with means and those who are lawyers themselves can totally abuse the court system for their own advantage and write the costs off as a tax advantage while forcing the other party to hire a lawyer .
If you do not hire a lawyer and defend yourself you become prey to the dirty legal tricks which deny justice and which is apparently allowed in our Legal system .
Our Justice sector fails in its task to “to make society safer and provide accessible justice services.”
Court has become a tool of oppression , why use a baseball bat to steal some ones wallet when you can use a lawyer and get their house and anything done through a lawyer is apparently legal .
Truth, evidence and integrity have no place in our courts and it appears that you can bring civil claims based on nothing but hogwash . Once the papers are served it is for your opponent to spend funds on lawyers, money which they cannot recover due to the oppressor cleverly hiding all their assets before they start.
I have experienced instances where the civil jurisdiction is being used to pervert the course of justice.
Police simply won’t act if a matter is before the court and without evidence the civil jurisdiction supported by the total lack of rights to the Universal Declaration of Human rights
Some Lawyers appear to use the court to pervert the cause of justice by using the civil jurisdiction to conceal criminal offending.While it is a crime to beat someone up with a baseball bat it appears to be sanctioned if done with a lawyer and legal tactics.
The fact that immense stress and bullying has health repercussions is not even considered a factor and neither must the person being beaten up show any emotion because that is another black mark against them.
I am a former police prosecutor and through my involvement in the Civil court have found that our bill of rights in New Zealand does not afford the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial court to those in the civil jurisdiction this is totally out of step with the Universal declaring of Human rights .
I have previously made an OIA request with this regard and your staff have responded .
I would By way of OIA request further Documentation and discussion papers which examine
1. Why criminal judgements confidential when all civil judgements are published, are both not equally accountable to the public records act.
2. Why convictions in the criminal jurisdiction are not a matter of public record and accessible to all yet civil matters gets full and permanent publicity
3. Criminals have advantage of the clean slate act yet those in the civil jurisdiction are accountable to the decisions for ever , this appears to be a disparity has this been considered and discussed if not why not
4. What the threshold for perjury is and to what degree that drifting from the truth is acceptable before any one is prosecuted, and who prosecutes when the police are under resourced and overburdened?
5. What consideration the minister of justice has given to the use of the civil jurisdiction to pervert the course of justice in the criminal jurisdiction? – To this end, those engaged in crime tend to have more funds than whistle-blowers. Any one coming across a crime has a choice of becoming an accessory by concealing it or speaking up. When they speak up they find themselves under attack from the “would be” criminal and legal tactics rather than truth and evidence are used to financially cripple them. Law is not affordable to the average person and the costs of being taken to court is crippling it is a tool by which the rich and the corrupt can beat up those who are trying to survive. An hour for a lawyer is a weeks wages for the average New Zealander . Law has got out of hand.
6. If the minister of Justice has no way of delivering justice has the minister considered ways to put justice in place or otherwise renaming the ministry.
Our courts need to give protection to the citizens of this country. To allow the courts to be used in appropriately is an abuse of process which I believe the Minister of Justice should seek to prevent.
I look forward to your response.
I am standing as an Independent for Epsom and will make this an election issue.
Update see response from Judith Collins re justice