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:
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)