‘Bid to disrupt justice’

Press, 19 December 1981, Page 1

‘Bid to disrupt justice’

PA Wellington The Chief District Court Judge, Judge Sullivan, asserted yesterday that there was an orchestrated plan by certain people to disrupt justice in New Zealand.

Referring to a report that a District Court hearing at Kawakawa had been continually interrupted, Mr Sullivan said, “There has been an attempt going on for some time by certain people to disrupt the establishment and the law.”

However, Judge Sullivan, who is in charge of District Courts, was not aware of the Kawakawa incident, reported yesterday.

He said he knew that the first day of hearings over Waitangi marae protests had been disrupted. He had made inquiries about those disruptions but was not aware that there had been further trouble after the hearing was moved from Kaikohe to Kawakawa. He said that he would ask

the District Court judge at Kawakawa, Judge Paul, about the reports published in a Whangarei newspaper. The report said that there was abuse of Judge Paul and the Crown prosecutor, and people ignored the clerk's call to stand when the judge entered and left the Court. Defendants lectured and abused witnesses and disrupted proceedings with interjections, statements, and disparaging remarks. Defendants wandered about the courtroom during cross-examination or sat on an open window sill in the courtroom.

They frequently chewed food while cross-examining witnesses arid wandered in and out of Court.

Judge Paul had to adjourn after a man, apparently under the influence of alcohol, exchanged greetings with defendants in- the middle of cross-examination, the report said. '