Tributes to retiring Judge

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 12

Tributes to retiring Judge

PA Auckland A man of “quick intelligence; patience, good humour, and an instinctive flair for doing justice,” left the High Court Bench at Auckland on Monday. These were some of the tributes given from the Bar when Auckland lawyers packed the main courtroom to farewell Mr Justice Speight. His Honour has retired, aged 61, after 16 years on the Bench. From next month hq will hold the part-time posts of Chief Justice of the Cook Islands and a member of the Fijian Court of Appeal. The Government was represented at the ceremony by the Solicitor-General, Mr Paul Neazor. He said Mr Justice Speight’s decisions upheld the principle that a judge'should be sensitive - not only to the issues of a case but also to how litigants felt about it. The president of the Law Society (Mr Bruce Slane) said that Mr Justice Speight had “an instinctive flair for doing justice." He also had a capacity to get to the essentials of a case, a quick intelligence, and a mastery of facts which were the envy of other practitioners. He had the patience and good humour to placate people who came to the Court under emotional stress. ' . The president of the Auckland District Law Society,

Mr Peter Clapshaw, said that his Honour had “a clarity of thought and. expression coupled with a keen sense of humour." In his farewell remarks, his Honour said: “The most important person in any court is the litigant, who is going to lose. I “The loser has got to leave the court and it is'essential that when he does he feels he has been listened to and understood.” His Honour, whose outside posts have included membership of the University of Auckland cpouncil, the New Zealand Olympic Games Association, and the Eden Park Trust Board, said that he had worn many uniforms but none more'proudly than his black and white legal garb. The law was “the embodiment of the rules by which all successful tribes have survived." To legislators and law reformers, he said: “Please don't try to change it too quickly, as those, who have gone before us knew more of life and wisdom than we do."