Speaker 1: Gielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. In
Speaker 1: New Zealand, there are a number of tribunals and review
Speaker 1: boards you can go to when you feel things haven't
Speaker 1: quite gone your way, whether you've had a bad experience
Speaker 1: leaving your job, or something's gone wrong in your healthcare journey.
Speaker 1: These committees are tasked with working out what has gone
Speaker 1: wrong and who, if anyone, should be held responsible, but
Speaker 1: some of them can be limited in how much they
Speaker 1: can hold people to account. For example, the Human Rights
Speaker 1: Review Tribunal is one of the few in New Zealand
Speaker 1: that can award damages. Reporter Jeremy Wilkinson covers a lot
Speaker 1: of these tribunals for Open Justice and he joins us
Speaker 1: today on the Front Page for the first in a
Speaker 1: series of exams nations of how these processes work. And Jeremy,
Speaker 1: let's start with the obvious one. What exactly is the
Speaker 1: Human Rights Review Tribunal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the tribunal, it's our highest human rights jurisdiction
Speaker 2: in the country. It's charged with hearing claims relating to discrimination,
Speaker 2: sexual and racial harassment. Privacy breaches, and health and disability rights.
Speaker 1: It can IFU.
Speaker 2: Findings make awards up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And there are a few paths that lead you kind
Speaker 1: of to this tribunal.
Speaker 2: Hey, there's three pads that can get you there, each
Speaker 2: through a different commissioner. So you can go through the
Speaker 2: Health and disability, the privacy or the Human Rights commissioner.
Speaker 2: They don't each other. They need to make a favorable
Speaker 2: finding in your case for you to go up a level,
Speaker 2: so to speak, to get to the Human Rights Review tribunal.
Speaker 2: But you do need to kind of tick that box
Speaker 2: through one of those commissioners before you can actually make
Speaker 2: it to the tribunal. And that's meant to be the
Speaker 2: kind of triaging.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's talk through those briefly, Health and disability
Speaker 1: handles issues and healthcare and will come to that with
Speaker 1: you on another episode. But the Privacy Commissioner considers complaints
Speaker 1: about things like breaches of privacy and access to personal information.
Speaker 1: That sounds pretty broad. What kind of cases have you
Speaker 1: seen considered here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the procy Commissioner, their rulings are for the
Speaker 2: most part, funnily enough, private they probabished some of their
Speaker 2: rulings every year, but they're mostly anonymized. In terms of
Speaker 2: a case that we've seen where we did have a
Speaker 2: woman contact us with an active complaint. She was at
Speaker 2: a bar and Wellington met a guy and they hooked up,
Speaker 2: but it was on CCTV and one of the staff
Speaker 2: members at the bar was watching on CCTV, filmed it
Speaker 2: on their phone and sent it to the man's partner.
Speaker 2: As partners then come in and assaulted the woman. So
Speaker 2: she took the bar to the Privacy Commissioner on the
Speaker 2: basis that filmed the CCTV and distributed it. The result
Speaker 2: of that wasn't given to us, but often parties will
Speaker 2: reach a settlement, but the Privacy Commissioner can't make a
Speaker 2: damages award. But often parties will reach a settlement as
Speaker 2: part of that mediation, if you like.
Speaker 3: Paula Hamilton went to the Deanery three years ago for
Speaker 3: help with her alcohol problems. A good relationship with the
Speaker 3: christ To Rehab Center soon turns out and ended with
Speaker 3: her seeking two hundred thousand dollars for breach of privacy.
Speaker 1: What was important to me was that he not be
Speaker 1: allowed harm all those sort of establishments harm people again.
Speaker 3: Now she's been awarded forty thousand dollars damages for humiliation
Speaker 3: and loss of dignity. The Human Rights Review Tribe NAL
Speaker 3: says the Deanery is guilty of serious breaches.
Speaker 1: And the Human Rights Commissioner. I think we can all
Speaker 1: imagine the worst type of human rights abuses, like war
Speaker 1: crimes and the like, but I don't imagine our commissioner
Speaker 1: is tackling those cases on the regular is he? So
Speaker 1: what are they looking at?
Speaker 2: So the Human Rights Commission doesn't actually publish its cases,
Speaker 2: even anonymously, but we do see them as they filter
Speaker 2: through to the Human Rights Review Triviunal. I think one
Speaker 2: that stands out to me has been the case of
Speaker 2: Judith Webe. She subjected her flatmate. He's a professional immigrant
Speaker 2: who was trying to set up a place to live
Speaker 2: when he got to New Zealand, and she's subjected him
Speaker 2: to a racist tirade that was so severe that the
Speaker 2: tribunal ordered that she paid him twenty eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That was a couple of years ago. So that's the
Speaker 2: kind of ruling that the Human Rights Commissioner would deal
Speaker 2: with first and then it goes up to the Human
Speaker 2: Rights Review Tribunal.
Speaker 1: So once the case gets to the tribunal level, so
Speaker 1: to speak, what happens from there and how long can
Speaker 1: these processes take?
Speaker 2: It can take two years, according to an OAA released
Speaker 2: to NZME. I suppose, for context, high Court judges are
Speaker 2: expected to deliver judgments within three months, while their average
Speaker 2: is two years. In reality, we actually see people waiting
Speaker 2: a lot longer than that. Some people there we've talked
Speaker 2: to have waited two years after lodging a complaint to
Speaker 2: get a hearing, and then they've waited another two years
Speaker 2: to actually get a decision from there. Some experts speculate
Speaker 2: that the various commissioner's ability to not award damages means
Speaker 2: that people don't feel that justice has been achieved at
Speaker 2: that lower level. So they kind of reach the end
Speaker 2: of the road with the Privacy commission or the Human
Speaker 2: Rights Commissioner and think, okay, so what now and the
Speaker 2: what now is the Human Rights Review Tribunal?
Speaker 1: What are some more cases that you've covered from the tribunal?
Speaker 2: Judith Weby is the one that again stands out for me.
Speaker 2: She keeps cropping up over and about her again a
Speaker 2: few more times, not through the tribunal, but that was
Speaker 2: one that does stand out for me. There was another
Speaker 2: really interesting one, a guy in the whited Upper called
Speaker 2: Stephen Butcher. He objected to his photo being on his
Speaker 2: driver's license because it was his interpretation that when you
Speaker 2: encode a photograph digitally, it turns into a series of
Speaker 2: zeros and ones, and those zeros and ones and his
Speaker 2: estimation could spell out six sixty six or the mark
Speaker 2: of the beast, and that went against his Christian religion.
Speaker 2: That was a pretty wild case where they flew up
Speaker 2: a historian from Dunedin to give the expert evidence on
Speaker 2: this thousand year old piece of papyrus that Stephen Butcher
Speaker 2: presented his evidence. Suffice to say, he did not win
Speaker 2: that and he must have his photo on his driver's
Speaker 2: license if he wants to drive like everyone else in
Speaker 2: New Zealand.
Speaker 1: I guess that's a perfect starting point to my next question,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and I want to ask about what kinds
Speaker 1: of cases can be heard and if there's any limit,
Speaker 1: because based on some of your recent reporting and that
Speaker 1: case that you've just told me there, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like there is any limit. What can you tell me
Speaker 1: about a man named Timing Zong.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, mister Zong has had five rulings through the tribunal.
Speaker 2: Some of them have had more merit than others. One
Speaker 2: of them, he took the Redhill Restaurant in Wellington to
Speaker 2: the tribunal because he wanted to eat a meal called
Speaker 2: a hot pot, which is generally shared, and he wanted
Speaker 2: to just pay for one person, but he'd have to
Speaker 2: pay the full sharing price as just the way the
Speaker 2: restaurant and the meal is set up, so he took
Speaker 2: them to the tribunal for that. He took Samsung to
Speaker 2: the tribunal Samsung's New Zealand branch because his Chinese simcard
Speaker 2: wouldn't work in his phone. He took Apple Apple New
Speaker 2: Zealand sales to the tribunal because he claimed that his
Speaker 2: iPad's voice function was racist. And he tried to take
Speaker 2: the James Cook Hotel in Wellington to the tribunal as
Speaker 2: well when they gave him Coke zero instead of Coke
Speaker 2: no Sugar, which was what it was advertised on their menu.
Speaker 2: The Tribunal was called many of his claims frivolous, but
Speaker 2: they can't stop him making the claims and this is
Speaker 2: where that triajin from the other three commissioners kind of
Speaker 2: comes into play, and that Zen would have had to
Speaker 2: take his complaints to any one of those three commissioners,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter if they make a no finding.
Speaker 2: He's ticked that box, so he can now take it
Speaker 2: up another level. The Director of Human Rights proceedings's a
Speaker 2: guy called Michael Timmins, and he's spoken to The Herald
Speaker 2: before about how that triaging from those bottom or those
Speaker 2: lower level commissioners needs to perhaps be more more effective,
Speaker 2: or perhaps those commissioners need more power to stop frivolous
Speaker 2: claims advancing and to help resolve claims before they need
Speaker 2: to go up another level.
Speaker 4: The Human Rights Tribunal has found the Crown breached the
Speaker 4: privacy of Kim dot Com. In twenty fifteen, the Attorney
Speaker 4: General rejected dot COM's requests for access to all information
Speaker 4: held about in my government ministers and departments. The reason
Speaker 4: given was that the Internet mogul's request were vexatious and trivial.
Speaker 4: Now the Tribunal has found there was a breach of
Speaker 4: privacy and has now ordered the Attorney General to play
Speaker 4: him ninety thousand dollars in damages.
Speaker 1: So I suppose anyone can just take a case up
Speaker 1: if you've got the money for it. What sort of
Speaker 1: impact does that have on the process.
Speaker 2: We actually see quite a few people self represented through
Speaker 2: the tribunal, So there has been quite a few inmates
Speaker 2: or former inmates taking the Department of Corrections through the
Speaker 2: tribunal or breaches of privacy and a breach of privacy
Speaker 2: here in this context is where you apply for information
Speaker 2: from any agency new jay them. They don't have to
Speaker 2: be government. You can apply for no leaning to send
Speaker 2: you any information it has about you under the Privacy Act.
Speaker 2: So we're seeing lots of people who apply for this
Speaker 2: information and it's not released. It's a similar process to
Speaker 2: the IA process. I suppose we see a lot of
Speaker 2: people who don't have money for a lawyer. They will
Speaker 2: actually just progress a claim self represented through the tribunal
Speaker 2: and actually they do often have a fair bit of success.
Speaker 1: So if you don't have the money, but you do
Speaker 1: feel like you've had your human rights breached, say what
Speaker 1: are the options available to you? Then?
Speaker 2: So, as we mentioned before, you can self represent or
Speaker 2: the Director of Human Rights Proceedings he is in a
Speaker 2: tax funded position where he can take certain cases on
Speaker 2: and progress them through the tribunal on your behalf. It's
Speaker 2: quite an essential function because it means that people without
Speaker 2: the means to take serious claims, or without the time,
Speaker 2: energy or knowledge to research the Human Rights Act or
Speaker 2: the Privacy Act or the Health and Disability Act, it
Speaker 2: means they can be represented by someone who is familiar
Speaker 2: with that and they can seek justice in that manner.
Speaker 1: You've spoken to people who have gone through these tribunal processes.
Speaker 1: Do they feel like it's worth it?
Speaker 2: The phrase it's often touted as justice delayed is justice denied,
Speaker 2: And when you're waiting four years sometimes from claim to ruling,
Speaker 2: can probably feel like it's not with it. But then again,
Speaker 2: there was a guy we covered, Malcolm King. He's claustrophobically
Speaker 2: locked in a police cell, waited four years for a decision.
Speaker 2: He said it was incredibly frustrating, but at the end
Speaker 2: of the day he was represented for free by the
Speaker 2: Director of Human Rights Proceedings and one forty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So incredibly frustrating to wait four years, but he didn't
Speaker 2: need to pay for a lawyer out of any of
Speaker 2: those fees. I suppose as another factor to again bring
Speaker 2: it back to Judith withbe she was ordered to pay
Speaker 2: twenty eight thousand dollars but hasn't paid it, so it
Speaker 2: was it worth it for the complaint in there? Maybe not?
Speaker 2: The government departments tend to pay up, but the tribunal
Speaker 2: doesn't actually have the power to enforce its own orders.
Speaker 1: None of the.
Speaker 2: Tribunals in New Zealand do. Finally enough, they can make
Speaker 2: an order, but then it needs to be backed up
Speaker 2: by the district court, at which point your bailiffs can
Speaker 2: get involved, or you can get money taken directly from
Speaker 2: a salary or a benefit. But again that takes more
Speaker 2: time and energy.
Speaker 1: What's the argument for giving tribunals and review committees these
Speaker 1: kind of things more powers.
Speaker 2: There's a Ministry of Justice kind of working group that
Speaker 2: looked at this and they were looking at potentially giving
Speaker 2: the dispute tribunal more power. One of their recommendations was
Speaker 2: to actually double the damage's capped for the Disputes Tribunal
Speaker 2: from thirty thousand dollars to sixty thousand dollars, which this
Speaker 2: current government has has put forward, so that that's something
Speaker 2: they're aiming to progress in terms of giving tribunals more power.
Speaker 2: I don't think there is among experts and among the
Speaker 2: recommendations that we've seen, that's not something that seems to
Speaker 2: be on the table because New Zealand operates on a
Speaker 2: trust basis. Right, you can go and buy, you can
Speaker 2: fill your car up and then pay for petrol, for example,
Speaker 2: and that kind of filters down into the way that
Speaker 2: we operate as a society. We tend to trust people.
Speaker 2: And ninety nine percent of people who have a tribunal
Speaker 2: order made against them see you know, the Ministry of
Speaker 2: Justice letterhead and they think, oh, I have to pay that,
Speaker 2: and they don't look into it any further. But there
Speaker 2: is a very small percentage in people who don't pay,
Speaker 2: or perhaps can't pay so they won't pay. Undergoing massive
Speaker 2: law changes in order to give tribunals more power. Is
Speaker 2: that something and it's worth it? From the advice to
Speaker 2: the Ministry, it isn't worth it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Jeremy.
Speaker 2: No worries.
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news at
Speaker 1: enzed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 1: produced by Ethan Seals, Dan Goodwin is the sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
Speaker 1: for another look behind the headlines.