The LexisNexis New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te ture Access to Justice Award

After four failed attempts to hold our Annual Conference, our fifth try was magic and on 16 and 17 September 2022 the Conference went ahead. We were particularly looking forward to the Conference formal dinner, when we would be presenting our inaugural LexisNexis/New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te ture Access to Justice Award. On 17 September 2022, Maria Dew KC presented this award to Frances Joychild KC.

The genesis of this award was a series of NZBA meetings in 2017 and 2018 and the resulting NZBA Access to Justice Working Group and Report 2018, Āhei ki te Ture. Our Report concluded as a recommendation, that if we want to promote access to justice, we have to also honour those exemplars who do the work.

This Award was born therefore to celebrate, acknowledge and support those who do the hard graft, often without recognition, because these people are not people who generally seek to promote themselves.

We mentioned the idea of an Award to our partner, LexisNexis. They immediately said they would like to join us and sponsor this award, as they felt that it ties in with their rule of law global endeavour. In 2019 the LexisNexis Rule of Law Foundation was created - a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to advancing the rule of law around the world. While Aotearoa New Zealand fares well in many aspects of the rule of law, LexisNexis recognised that there are barriers to justice, particularly around access to legal remedy.

“We are very proud to support and encourage, in some small way, the various innovative and practical initiatives driven by members of the NZBA to effect change in this area,” says Chris Murray Head of Content Management at LexisNexis. This type of cooperation is not unusual for his company. In 2015 LexisNexis partnered with the International Bar Association to develop the eyeWitness to Atrocities app to help citizens capture footage of potential war crimes which could be used in later prosecutions. In May 2022, the app recorded a chilling benchmark of 10,000 verifiable videos, photographs, and audio files of alleged war crimes from the war in Ukraine.

The Access to Justice Award will be presented annually as a “thank you” to the lawyers who make it possible for the difficult cases to be heard, for the disadvantaged to access our courts, and for us to say we support the rule of law. For those lawyers who do this work, often at considerable personal and financial cost, the Award says, “we see you and honour you.”

The Award is, therefore, intended to recognise a New Zealand lawyer who has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion of access to justice. This may have been through advocacy, leadership and/ or influence. The Award is open to all New Zealand barristers sole, barristers and solicitors, academics, and/or law students.

The winner of the Award must have demonstrated:

• A strong commitment to access to justice in the community offering services pro-bono, low bono or legal aid service to individuals and/or community organisations; and

• Outstanding leadership, influence or innovation to enhance the provision, management and delivery of legal services to enable better access to justice outcomes for individuals and/or communities.

The Prize is in two parts. The first is a tailored package from LexisNexis, of one of the following options:

1. A one-year subscription to the NZBA e-library package; or

2. A customised online content package, valued up to $3600 or a credit up to this value; or

3. A donation of the equivalent amount to an organisation relating to the honouree’s work or preference.

In addition, as the second part of the award, the winner will receive a cash prize from the Bar Association of $2000. This money will come from the donation funds given to the Bar Association by the late Dr Gerard McCoy QC. We acknowledge his memory and his own well-known contributions to the law.

Our inaugural recipient, Frances Joychild KC, is someone who more than fulfils the criteria. She is rightly regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading public law and human rights advocates. The range of her work is vast and includes being counsel on significant cases in many areas including Bill of Rights and Human Rights Acts, health and disability, education, immigration and refugee law, domestic violence, and abuse in care settings.

In her 30 plus year career, Frances has built a body of work that is the very definition of what it is to commit to access to justice. Straight out of Victoria University with a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science and Public Administration, she became investigator, then Legal Adviser and Counsel to the Human Rights Commission. Frances joined the independent bar in 1998. She was a Law Commissioner from 2003 to 2006. She then took silk in 2013.

Frances was senior counsel for the parents of severely disabled adult children in the successful Court of Appeal landmark discrimination case of Atkinson v Ministry of Health, that established the test for discrimination under the Bill of Rights Act. She also acted as senior counsel for the Child Poverty Action Group, in long running litigation against the Attorney General. Though not ultimately succeeding it made some important wins for human rights claimants along the way, including the Court of Appeal sending a message to the government that the Courts will scrutinise government justifications for discrimination even in areas of economic and social policy. In 2017 she succeeded in a refugee appeal to the Court of Appeal relating to religious rights. In 2019 she won a Supreme Court judicial review on behalf of a refugee denied a first hearing that has set the courts in a new direction in public law.

In 2017, Frances conducted a Report for the Chief of Air Force, New Zealand Defence Force, concerning allegations of historic bullying and sexual assault and review of contemporary procedures and made recommendations for change. Earlier, in 2002, she had undertaken a review of the MSD fraud unit's application of the law which resulted in debt payments being returned to hundreds of beneficiaries. More recently Frances represented the Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch. In the last two years, she has been counsel for Lake Alice abuse survivors in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.

In Covid times, Frances represented pregnant woman Bergen Graham, who was stuck in El Salvador while pregnant and denied a MIQ spot six times. Frances filed a judicial review claim on behalf of Graham, and shortly after, her allocation was granted.

Frances has now been appointed to lead the inquiry into historic abuse at Dilworth School alongside Dame Silvia Cartwright.

Frances is eminently qualified to receive this award. Access to justice is a simple principle, but it operates in a complex area, with very few easy solutions. It needs champions. We thank Frances for her mahi over the years and for persisting to highlight the issues for us all.