Otago University researchers Professor Mark Henaghan and Dr Jennifer Moore will review all Coroners’ findings and recommendations between 2006 and 2011 and interview around 60 agencies and organisations to determine how much they take notice of the findings.

The New Zealand Law Foundation-funded study is commencing as Coroners express frustration that their recommendations are not being followed up. Chief Coroner Neil McLean has reportedly urged the Government to look at making it compulsory for relevant agencies to consider Coroners’ recommendations, as happens in some other countries.

Jennifer Moore says there is a pressing and overdue need for good information on how Coroners’ recommendations are being implemented.

“A common refrain of those who have lost family members is that they want the coronial system to ensure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” she says.

“Coroners have said that agencies are failing to take their recommendations seriously, but are all their recommendations possible to implement? Should mandatory follow-up be part of New Zealand law? Any such law reform must be evidence-based, not anecdotal.”

The Otago University project will work in collaboration with Coronial Services, and will take account of overseas experience, including a similar research project in Victoria, Australia, where there is mandatory follow-up of Coroners’ findings.

This work is relevant and topical. It is an important project that will fill a vital knowledge gap in our legal and public health system.

The Law Foundation is providing funding of $137,861 for this project.

Amelia will use the $50,000 award to undertake an LLM course at Columbia University in New York. Her research paper will compare regulatory models of fresh water management in New Zealand and the United States, focusing on environmental federalism.

“The central thesis is that the National Policy Statement on water represents a shift away from regional council autonomy towards central government control,” she says.

“There’s been a lot of analysis on environmental federalism in the US, in terms of whether it achieves better water outcomes, from both an economic and a public participation perspective. But it hasn’t been the focus of academic commentary here.

“I don’t necessarily think centralism is bad, the question is how we can best structure it to achieve the right balance.”

Currently a solicitor at Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young in Wellington, Amelia was clerk for the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice O’Regan, after being admitted to the bar in 2010. Before that, she gained a First Class Honours degree in law from Victoria, along with a BA in History and Philosophy.

Amelia says the award allows her to pursue an interest she feels very strongly about.

“I haven’t had the chance to do a lot of environmental law thus far, so this gives me the opportunity to develop a specialisation…it has come at exactly the right time,” she says.

The Ethel Benjamin scholarship honours New Zealand’s first woman barrister and solicitor, who was admitted to the bar in 1897. Since the centenary of this event, the Law Foundation has awarded this scholarship annually to outstanding New Zealand women law graduates for post-graduate study. The award is worth up to $50,000 and details of the award and previous winners can be found on the Foundation’s website.

The team of Benedict Tompkins, Mark Tushingham, Matt Beattie and Namita Singh won the prize for the best applicant memorial (written submissions) in the competition and won the runner-up award for combined memorials (applicant and respondent).

The Foundation sponsors the Jessup mooting team each year, and this equals the best ever result by any New Zealand team.

Now in its 53rd year, the Jessup is the world’s largest moot court competition with teams from more than 500 law schools in 80 plus countries taking part. More than 115 teams competed in the international rounds in Washington, drawn from over 600 teams worldwide.

Read more at http://www.law.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=477457

These might include substituting jury trials with judges either sitting alone or assisted by lay assessors, as used in European jurisdictions. Other trial process options might include pre-trial cross-examination, as well as specialist judges, prosecutors, police, defence counsel and support persons.

Co-researchers Elisabeth McDonald, Yvette Tinsley and Jeremy Finn say a “cookie-cutter, one size fits all” approach won’t work – “there is no perfect panacea that we can transport to New Zealand,” Yvette says.

Yvette Tinsley and Elisabeth McDonald, Victoria University of Wellington

Jeremy Finn, Canterbury University

Their two-year study was published in December 2011 as a book, From “Real Rape” to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand. The study is also a major input to the Law Commission’s work on whether inquisitorial procedures should be applied in New Zealand.

The study draws on overseas and local experience to propose alternatives to the current system. It advocates using restorative justice in appropriate cases, improved risk assessment processes in child sex abuse cases, and public awareness education.

The prosecution of sexual offending is a notoriously fraught process, with little improvement despite reforms over many decades.

The study was prompted by the Law Commission’s 2007 report into issues publicised by Louise Nicholas following the alleged sexual offending against young women by police officers in the 1980s. The report asked whether the adversarial court system should be modified or replaced by an alternative model in sex offence cases.

The authors travelled to Europe and studied the inquisitorial system in five countries. They found that greater involvement by professional judges in the fact-finding process, rather than two competing parties with the judge as umpire, could allow for less undermining of witnesses and more focus on establishing the facts.

On the other hand, witnesses could still face distressing questioning in the inquisitorial system. In some ways New Zealand’s system was superior, for example by allowing support people for victims and remote courtroom participation.

Elisabeth says that changing to an inquisitorial system would not necessarily lead to a better experience for victims, nor to higher conviction rates. There would also be practical problems in changing the system for sexual offending but not for other offences.

“The things that could make a difference are around the dynamic of how a judge comes to a decision – how much control a judge has over a case,” she says.

Sexual offence reporting and conviction rates in New Zealand remain very low – a Ministry of Women’s Affairs study last year found that only 13 per cent of sexual violence cases reported to Police resulted in conviction.

“The public perception is that the sentence for rape is 20 years, although realistically anything close to this penalty is reserved for the very worst offences. But that perception might be preventing people from reporting,” Ms McDonald says.

The authors argue that implementing this fuller range of responses would deliver appropriately just outcomes to all sexual offence victims, not just victims of “real rape” – that is, the paradigmatic crime committed by a stranger in a dark alley. This type of sexual offending is relatively uncommon, although such offending is most likely to be resolved satisfactorily from the victim’s perspective.

From “Real Rape” to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand is available from Victoria University Press:   http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/2011titleinformation/prosecuting.aspx

The Law Foundation provided funding of $85,925.00 towards this study.

University of Canterbury, School of Law

Public Lecture:  6pm Wed 29 Feb 2012

Venue:  Lecture Theatre 108, School of Law, University of Canterbury

Topic:  “Human Rights, Judges and Politicians: Recent Controversies in the UK and Europe”

Victoria University of Wellington, Faculty of Law

Public Lecture:  5.30-6.30pm Thurs 8 Mar 2012

Venue:  Old Government Building Lecture Theatre 1, Faculty of Law VUW

Topic:  “Negotiating the Fundamental Right to Personal Liberty: Four Problem Cases”

University of Otago, Faculty of Law

Public Lecture:  5.30pm Wed 14 Mar 2012

Venue: Moot Court, 10th Floor Law Faculty, The Richardson Building, University of Otago

Topic:  “Negotiating the Fundamental Right to Personal Liberty: Four Problem Cases”

University of Waikato, Faculty of Law

Public Lecture:  6.15-7pm Tues 20th Mar 2012

Venue:  Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato

Topic:  “Guilty of Doing Nothing? Omission, Duties and Crimes”

Auckland University of Technology, Law School (AUT)

Public Lecture: 6-7pm Thurs 22 March 2012

Venue:  WF710, AUT Business School, 42 Wakefield Street, Auckland City

Topic:  “Guilty of Doing Nothing? Omissions, Duties and Crimes”?

University of Auckland, Faculty of Law

Public Lecture:  6pm Thurs 29 March 2012

Venue:  Old Government House Lecture Theatre, Cnr Princes Street and Waterloo Quadrant, Auckland

Topic:  “Human Rights, Judges and Politicians: Recent Controversies in UK and Europe”

The first edition, funded by the Law Foundation, and published in 2009, has quickly become the standard for the citation of New Zealand legal material. Justice Robert Chambers, who again led the project, comments in his preface:

“The first edition of the New Zealand Law Style Guide was published in late 2009. It would be going too far to say it was a runaway best seller, but the take-up has been nothing short of amazing. All the New Zealand law schools adopted it. So did all the New Zealand publishers of law reports and journals. Most courts (including the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal) and many tribunals follow it. Other entities, such as the Law Commission, have used it in their publications. Many barristers now follow it in their court submissions.”

The project team consisted of Wellington Barrister Jonathan Orpin, LexisNexis Managing Editor Chris Murray, and the Law Commission’s Geoff McLay and Sophie Klinger, along with Justice Chambers. The team again sought and considered submissions from a wide range of stakeholders including the judiciary, legal academics, law libraries, legal publishers and others. The lion’s share of the updating was carried out by Jonathan, ably assisted by Chris. The group’s primary aim was to preserve the rules that many have learnt from the first edition, but to provide clarifications and more examples wherever possible to help users.

The second edition aims to build on the success of the first edition by:

• Providing new or expanded rules for a range of material not included in the first edition;
• Clarifying rules, including the cross referencing rules; and
• Simplifying the rules relating to the citation of international material.

Some sections have been rewritten and reordered to make them easier to understand. As a result the Guide is much more user-friendly and the new edition is essential for anyone who has to cite legal materials. It is intended that there will be no further editions until 2017 at the earliest.

The New Zealand Law Foundation supported the production of the first edition and owns the copyright to the Guide.

Hard copies can be purchased from Thomson Reuters at $19 + GST ($21.85 incl GST).

The Foundation’s 2011 International Research Fellowship, New Zealand’s premier legal research award, was won by Auckland University senior lecturer Christopher Hare.

His research will be published in a book, entitled Banks in the Conflict of Laws, and will cover legal issues arising from international banking operations.  It will deal with three broad areas: the intersection between international banking regulation and the conflict of laws; conflict of laws problems around the bank-customer relationship; and legal problems around bank payment systems and recovery of mistaken payments.

The book will shed light on issues that often come to court but have received little academic treatment. Banks are often involved in significant litigation where conflict of laws issues are raised – the book will fill a gap in detailed analysis of how conflict of law principles operate on bank payment instruments and the banker-customer relationship.

His study is especially timely given efforts to produce a coordinated response to the global financial meltdown, which has highlighted the inter-connectedness of domestic banking systems.

A graduate of Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard, Christopher’s specialty teaching and research areas include banking law and international sales and finance, company and insolvency law, conflict of laws, and law of obligations.

Inaugural Award of Doctoral Scholarship

The first-ever award of the Foundation’s Doctoral Scholarship (in Law) was also made.  There were two winners of the inaugural awards.

Bridgette Toy-Cronin

Bridgette Toy-Cronin will study unrepresented litigants in New Zealand Civil Courts at the University of Otago, and Aline Jäckel will research issues around an ecologically sustainable legal regime of marine biological diversity at Auckland University.

Bridgette Toy-Cronin’s study will examine characteristics of unrepresented civil litigants – how many there are, who they are and why they are not represented – as well as changes that could help them to be accommodated better.

A Harvard law graduate, Bridgette has worked in legal practice in New Zealand and Australia, as well as providing legal advice to a women’s rights team in Cambodia and to the Government prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda.

Aline Jaekel

Aline Jäckel’s study aims to help create a comprehensive legal protection for shared marine resources, drawing on New Zealand sustainable management examples. Her study would propose alternatives to structural aspects of the international legal system.

A graduate of Leiden University in the Netherlands, Aline will complete her doctorate in international environmental law at Auckland.

The New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Award supports research either in New Zealand or overseas that aims to make a significant contribution to New Zealand law. The annual award is worth $125,000.

The New Zealand Law Foundation Doctoral Scholarship (in Law) aims to encourage postgraduate study and legal research for the benefit of New Zealand’s legal system. It is valued at $35,000 a year for up to three years.

David Turner has packed more into his 24 years than most people do in a lifetime – but he’s only just getting started.

A straight-A law student, David is a Supreme Court Judge’s clerk with a raft of legal prizes to his credit. He balances professional success with extensive professional and community work – he’s involved with the Wellington Young Lawyers’ Committee, Professional Pathways, the Red Cross, UN Youth New Zealand, debating, singing, drama and performance.

David is this year’s winner of the New Zealand Law Foundation Cleary Memorial Prize, awarded to young lawyers who show the most promise of service to, and through, the legal profession.

He plans to use the prize to help fund study for an LLM at a major American university – and beyond that, a career in law, and maybe politics.

“I’d like to attain real success in law – as well as practising, I’d like to help develop policy, shape law and do law reform work, perhaps as a member of Parliament,” he says.

The Cleary Prize honours the memory of Sir Timothy Cleary, past President of the Wellington District and New Zealand Law Societies and a Court of Appeal Judge until his death in 1962. It recognises the example Sir Timothy’s own life set for young people entering the profession.

“I’m honoured and humbled to be awarded the prize. It recognises the promise that young lawyers show, and their future potential – so it’s both an honour and a real challenge to make good on that promise,” David says.

“I really appreciate that it doesn’t just recognise academic achievement – it’s also a recognition of broader community engagement and activity.”

David is clerk to Supreme Court Justice Blanchard, assisting him with many significant judgements.

“The more I learn and practice law, the more I appreciate how much law impacts on people’s daily activities – the precedential values that can affect the individual and collective rights of New Zealanders as a society.”

He says legal knowledge has greatly assisted with his community work – this has included mobilising young Wellington lawyers to raise $10,000 in a street appeal for the Christchurch earthquake, as well as greeting Christchurch earthquake “refugees” at the airport and ensuring they were looked after.

While he won’t know for some months whether he’s been accepted to Harvard or Yale, David says the Cleary Prize lends both financial support and prestige to his application, by showing that his many achievements have been recognised by New Zealand’s legal community.

In 2008, the Law Foundation took over administration of the award from the New Zealand Law Society who had administered it since 1964. The original intent of the prize was retained and the value increased to $5,000.

Applications are open to any barrister and/or solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand admitted during the three year period ending on 31 August of the year of the award.