JANZ seeks that unity in the belief that together, supporting each other, in a spirit of open-mindedness and collegiality, we may better serve our communities. We will pursue opportunities to enhance your judicial role and seek practical ways to support you and your whānau. We will support our heads of bench as they guide and guard us. We will be with you and yours from induction to retirement.
If decline is not only inevitable but also happens earlier than most of us expect, what should we do when it comes for us?
With several months to go before my ‘terminal date’, on 30 October, I have commenced the judicial version of Swedish death cleaning (döstädning). Last Sunday, in my intentional, proactive process of decluttering and organising, I opened a tiny file marked ‘My Appeals’.
Welcome to your Ben Ming Nian, horses! 2026 is your zodiac year, a time when the energies of the horse double up. That means highs feel higher, and lows may test your patience — but it’s also a powerful year for growth and transformation.
I’ve written before about my visit to the remarkable Bastøy prison island in Norway. Bastøy is a low-security, male-only prison, which lies about 75km south east of Oslo. The 2.6km2 island hosts 115 inmates making it the largest low-security prison in Norway. Now, my son, James, from Oslo, supplies his green coffee beans into the ‘Prisonmade’ organisation run by the Norwegian Correctional Service He recently visited their roastery to help train inmates.
It was in 1965, at a Thanksgiving Day dinner in the meditation room of the United Nations building, that the idea of World Gratitude Day first came into being. Spiritual and meditation leader Sri Chinmoy suggested there be a day of thanks that the whole world could celebrate together. Those present at the meeting pledged that each year on September 21 they would hold a celebration of gratitude in their country. We did so last month.
There is an apocalyptic track on David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album that is about the end of the world; it expresses the chaos and sentiment when an alien comes to Earth and tells us we’ve got five years. That’s it.
And it makes me wonder: What would it be like if Ziggy Stardust came to Earth and told us judges we’ve only got five years? What if we knew that there was absolutely nothing we could do or not do that would change it — that in five years our courts would be gone, prisons empty, registries closed, chambers boarded up. What if none of our efforts were put into trying to survive the next list, trial, mediation, case flow management, or row upon row of box work or commercial claims?
Just for a minute, imagine with me what that kind of freedom would look like!
Well, for one, if the game is over, we would have no reason to try and justify taking our time to connect with our cases and the people in them, or angst over discounting properly for a person's difference found in a report about their personal journey into our courtroom. And maybe, just maybe, for once say to litigants and their lawyers what we really feel they need to hear.
We’d have no reason to keep buildings we can’t repair or build more prisons we could never fill. Here’s something: We could stop kissing up to toxic ignorant points of view about what we do and how many times we do it and start connecting with the people before us not counting their events in the justice system by the minute. We could cancel every single committee meeting and spend time with each other about what’s best to do. We could serve more.
Ministry speak would be immediately banned — no cascading, decanting, stakeholders, or sectorial engagement. Oh what freedom that would be! We would have no sacred cows. Nothing to be defensive about. No reason to be offended. We’d laugh more. We’d cry more. We’d celebrate more. We’d talk more. We’d connect more, and more than once every three years.
But wait a minute, our judicial service is not a rehearsal. None of this need take five years my brothers and sisters. All of it can be done if we just connect and support the things that must endure and matter.
That’s why we have our association. One simple word. Connection.
What becomes a problem is when we insist that there is one language in which we can communicate justice. Often, it just so happens to be with the language, or the art, or the culture, or the humour that we inherited and comfortably understand. While there is this one law for all, there are countless ways of understanding it. There are countless images and words and music and culture that serve to tell that justice story whether in Spanish colonies or Aotearoa.
In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone is talking about robots. Actually, one robot in particular. Last November, the public was introduced to ChatGPT, and we began to imagine a world in which we all have a brilliant personal assistant, able to write everything from computer code to condolence cards. And last week, experts said AI poses the same threat as nuclear wars and pandemics. Our Chief Justice, following wise advice, issued a cautionary interim guidance on AI platforms. JANZ dives into the world of generative AI and the law.
King Charles III was crowned at Westminster on Saturday in a service steeped in tradition and history, with modern touches reflecting the sovereign’s style. Just think, it was 70 years ago when the young Prince stood in the royal box at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953 – bored and unimpressed – watching his own mother’s, Queen Elizabeth II, coronation ceremonies. In the image above he’s shown flanked between Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother and Princess Margaret Rose.
