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Dispatch from the NZBA Advocacy Committee
Tiho Mijatov and Yvonne Mortimer Wang*
We are pleased to report on some of the work of the Advocacy Committee.
The essential role of a committee of the New Zealand Bar Association like the Advocacy Committee is to assist the NZBA Council to carry out its functions. Our Committee is available to advise the Council on a range of matters relating to the administration of justice, to reform of legal procedures, to the rule of law, and to access to justice.
This work includes identifying and drafting responses to governmental law reform proposals, assisting as required in intervention in court cases, and working with a range of people on practical initiatives outside of formal legislative and adjudicative processes.
One such initiative relates to legal aid. Our committee is seeking to encourage the Legal Services Commissioner to simplify and streamline the civil legal aid application and allocation processes. We are looking at why the various requirements for taking on legal aid are in place (when such requirements do not exist for private instructions), and if some or all of them can continue to be justified today. We are looking at how the application form could be reimagined and improved. We would welcome practical feedbacks from NZBA members with examples of their own experiences with the legal aid application process – please get in touch.
Our Committee expects to work together with other NZBA Committees where appropriate. Depending on the issue and the expertise that is required, we might work with the Criminal Committee, Te Ao Māori Komiti and others. We are also open to working with other organisations or stakeholders.
We are pleased to say one such example is a prisoner rights workshop. We are developing this new initiative with our colleagues at the Criminal Bar Association (CBA). The idea is for our two organisations to facilitate their public and criminal defence members combining forces.
The idea of the initiative is to have the NZBA and CBA facilitate the connecting up of public lawyers and criminal defence lawyers, who can then jointly run human rights cases affecting prisoner rights.
The proposal is based on the understanding that while there is no shortage of a willingness by both public lawyers and criminal defence lawyers to use the law to protect prisoners’ human rights, there is a knowledge gap between the two groups of lawyers who are best placed to help. Public lawyers can help defence lawyers take the necessary preparatory steps for a public law challenge and articulate the grounds of challenge; while defence lawyers can help public lawyers by bringing human rights violations to their attention in the context of a vulnerable prisoner population.
With the CBA, we are organised an initial information session, which will was held in person in Wellington on 17 September at Stout Street Chambers. We were very happy with the response. Together with the CBA, we hope to deliver more of these in other centres in future.
We are fortunate to have a lively Committee made up of Gurbrinder Singh Aulakh, John Billington KC, Aedeen Boadita-Cormican, Dr Petra Butler, Victoria Casey KC, Christopher Corry, Paul David KC, Maria Dew KC, Alison Douglass, Toby Gee, Michael McKay, Warren Pyke, Craig Tuck, Monique van Alphen Fyfe, Alan Webb and Garry Williams KC. We would like to thank the Committee members who volunteer their time, energy and wisdom to the work of the Committee.
Tiho Mijatov and Yvonne Mortimer-Wang Co-chairs, Advocacy Committee
* Tiho Mijatov is a barrister at Stout Street Chambers and has experience in both civil litigation and criminal law. He regularly appears in courts and tribunals around New Zealand in a wide range of pre-trial matters, trials, appeals, and other hearings. Tiho often undertakes judicial review work on a wide range of public law matters including in the fields of human rights and prisoner rights.
Yvonne Mortimer-Wang is a barrister at Britomart Chambers. She is an experienced criminal and civil litigator who acts in a wide variety of proceedings, disputes and investigations with particular expertise in commercial crime, civil fraud litigation, proceeds of crime, regulatory prosecutions and professional disciplinary proceedings.
