Hart v The Standards Committee (No 1) of The New Zealand Law Society

• Jurisdiction: New Zealand
• Judge: Elias CJ,Blanchard,William Young JJ
• Judgment Date: 13 February 2012
• Neutral Citation: [2012] NZSC 4
• Docket Number: SC 129/2011
• Court: Supreme Court
• Date: 13 February 2012

BETWEEN

Barry John Hart

Applicant

and

The Standards Committee (No 1) of the New Zealand Law Society

Respondent

[2012] NZSC 4

Court:

Elias CJ, Blanchard and William Young JJ

SC 129/2011

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

Appeal against Court of Appeal's upholding of the High Court's refusal to order name suppression — applicant was barrister with high public profile — facing professional disciplinary charges — whether approach in favour of open justice did not apply to professionals with high public profiles facing disciplinary charges where no criminal offending alleged

Counsel:

R J Katz QC for Applicant

P N Collins for Respondent

• A The application for leave to appeal is dismissed.

• B In place of the order made by McGrath J on 21 December 2011 in relation to the searching of court files, we order that the Supreme Court file in relation to the application not be searched without the permission of a Judge.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

REASONS

1 The applicant faces charges (not involving criminal conduct) which are to be dealt with by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal. In a decision dated 18 March 2011, 1 but not emailed to the applicant until 4 May 2011, the Tribunal rejected an application for an order suppressing publication of the applicant's name. He unfortunately overlooked the email of 4 May and thus did not directly challenge the Tribunal's decision. Instead, and in the context of judicial review proceedings filed just before the scheduled substantive hearing of the

charges, 2 he sought a suppression and some associated orders directly of the High Court. The application for suppression was rejected by Toogood J in a judgment delivered on 13 December 2011 3 and a subsequent appeal to the Court of Appeal 4 was largely unsuccessful

2 The primary basis for the proposed appeal is the contention that the usual open justice approach adopted in cases such as R v Liddell 5 should not apply in the case of a professional person with a high public profile facing disciplinary charges, particularly where, as here, criminal offending is not alleged.

3 A Tribunal or Judge deciding whether to order suppression is exercising a discretion which, in a disciplinary context, must allow for any relevant statutory provisions as well as the more general need to strike a balance between open justice considerations and the interests of the party who seeks suppression. The likely particular impact of...