The Complaint - A Sequel

The Next Step in the Process

On 13 May I published an article entitled “The Complaint” on Substack. It was one of the most accessed of all the pieces I have written. There were a total of 1.63k views, together with a number of comments and some personal messages from readers.

The article was a rather detailed account of a complaint that Mr Gary Judd KC made to the Regulations Review Committee.

It outlined the way in which the subject of Mr Judd’s complaint – the compulsory teaching of Tikanga Maori as part of a law degree – came to be in the first place.

It set out Mr. Judd’s complaint which was essentially that tikanga did not fulfil the necessary requirements to qualify as law. This is a highly contentious issue, especially in light of the Supreme Court decision in R v Ellis [2022] NZSC 114.

In the article I then proceeded to consider the backlash to Mr. Judd’s actions on social media and elsewhere and that included an ill-considered response from the Dean of AUT Law School.

My article then examined a particular complaint from a lawyer whom I described as “Barrister X.” In particular there was a line of argument that he adopted based on a discredited theory of history called “The Doctrine of Discovery.” I referred particularly to an article by Professor Paul Moon and considered that Barrister X could have used other avenues for his argument rather than this contentious line of approach.

Since then I have been exposed to suggestions that the material that I used from Professor Moon’s article lacked attribution and was not properly signalled by quote marks.

A shorter version of “The Complaint” was published in Law News which did not contain the quoted material in quote marks although the source of Professor Moon’s article was identified.

The inference was that it was plagiarized. However, the copy submitted, as was the case of my Substack post contained the proper attributions. The direct quotes are contained in quote marks.

But this a just a side-bar to the main thrust of the article.

I went on to include comments from Professor Jane Kelsey and Mr Judd’s response to the critics, especially the Law School Dean. The article concluded with some observations about the way in which an individual can engage in the democratic process and challenge the validity of secondary legislation.

At the time that the article was published the Regulations Review Committee had not considered Mr Judd’s complaint.

It has now.

By letter dated 22 May 2024 the Chair of the Committee, Mr. David Parker, wrote to Mr Judd to advise that the Committee accepted that on the face of it Mr Judd’s complaint fell within the relevant Standing Orders and the committee had agreed to proceed with the complaint under those grounds. Mr. Parker’s letter advised that a copy of Mr Judd’s complaint would be sent to the New Zealand Council of Legal Education and the New Zealand Law Society, seeking a written submission on the complaint.

Mr. Judd himself has written on the response of the Committee on his Substack “Thoughts from the North” where he has set out the full text of Mr. Parker’s letter.

It will be very interesting to see how this matter develops. Mr. Judd’s complaint is a developing story that is relevant not only to the legal profession but to the public in general.

There are, as one would expect, contending views on the subject. It has already attracted a high level of public and professional interest and I shall keep my readers posted on continuing developments.