Criticism
Since its foundation, the Supreme Court has been subject to "unprecedented public criticism". The quality of several Supreme Court judgments have been criticised in New Zealand and overseas, and concerns expressed about the impact on the country's case law and international reputation.
Critics include Jim Farmer QC, Tony Molloy QC, and former appellate judge Sir Edmund Thomas. The major criticisms are the Supreme Courts' lack of experience and its membership being drawn initially from the Court of Appeal.
In defence of the Supreme Court Rodney Harrison QC pointed to the benefits including easier access, particularly in areas of law other than the Privy Council's staple of commercial and tax cases. The fears that the Supreme Court would lack independence have been put to rest by a willingness to overturn Court of Appeal decisions.
Prior to abolition the Privy Council heard up to twelve cases from New Zealand a year. The Supreme Court has heard an average of 29 substantive appeals. A third of those have been criminal appeals, a much higher ratio than heard by the Privy Council.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“... criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)