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March 30, 2025 • 14 mins

In New Zealand, there are a number of tribunals and review boards you can go to when you feel things haven’t quite gone your way. 

Whether you’ve had a bad experience leaving your job, or something’s gone wrong in your healthcare journey, these committees are tasked with working out what has gone wrong and who – if anyone – should be held responsible.  

But some of them can be limited in how much they can hold people to account.  

The Human Rights Review Tribunal is one of the few in New Zealand that can award damages if they find in your favour.  

Reporter Jeremy Wilkinson covers a lot of these tribunals for Open Justice, and he joins The Front Page today for the first in a series of examinations of how these processes work.  

Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.

Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Dan Goodwin
Producer: Ethan Sills

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Gielda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. In
New Zealand, there are a number of tribunals and review
boards you can go to when you feel things haven't
quite gone your way, whether you've had a bad experience

(00:27):
leaving your job, or something's gone wrong in your healthcare journey.
These committees are tasked with working out what has gone
wrong and who, if anyone, should be held responsible, but
some of them can be limited in how much they
can hold people to account. For example, the Human Rights
Review Tribunal is one of the few in New Zealand
that can award damages. Reporter Jeremy Wilkinson covers a lot

(00:52):
of these tribunals for Open Justice and he joins us
today on the Front Page for the first in a
series of exams nations of how these processes work. And Jeremy,
let's start with the obvious one. What exactly is the
Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, so the tribunal, it's our highest human rights jurisdiction
in the country. It's charged with hearing claims relating to discrimination,
sexual and racial harassment. Privacy breaches, and health and disability rights.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
It can IFU.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Findings make awards up to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
And there are a few paths that lead you kind
of to this tribunal.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Hey, there's three pads that can get you there, each
through a different commissioner. So you can go through the
Health and disability, the privacy or the Human Rights commissioner.
They don't each other. They need to make a favorable
finding in your case for you to go up a level,
so to speak, to get to the Human Rights Review tribunal.
But you do need to kind of tick that box

(01:58):
through one of those commissioners before you can actually make
it to the tribunal. And that's meant to be the
kind of triaging.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Right, So let's talk through those briefly, Health and disability
handles issues and healthcare and will come to that with
you on another episode. But the Privacy Commissioner considers complaints
about things like breaches of privacy and access to personal information.
That sounds pretty broad. What kind of cases have you
seen considered here?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, So the procy Commissioner, their rulings are for the
most part, funnily enough, private they probabished some of their
rulings every year, but they're mostly anonymized. In terms of
a case that we've seen where we did have a
woman contact us with an active complaint. She was at
a bar and Wellington met a guy and they hooked up,

(02:48):
but it was on CCTV and one of the staff
members at the bar was watching on CCTV, filmed it
on their phone and sent it to the man's partner.
As partners then come in and assaulted the woman. So
she took the bar to the Privacy Commissioner on the
basis that filmed the CCTV and distributed it. The result
of that wasn't given to us, but often parties will

(03:09):
reach a settlement, but the Privacy Commissioner can't make a
damages award. But often parties will reach a settlement as
part of that mediation, if you like.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Paula Hamilton went to the Deanery three years ago for
help with her alcohol problems. A good relationship with the
christ To Rehab Center soon turns out and ended with
her seeking two hundred thousand dollars for breach of privacy.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
What was important to me was that he not be
allowed harm all those sort of establishments harm people again.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
Now she's been awarded forty thousand dollars damages for humiliation
and loss of dignity. The Human Rights Review Tribe NAL
says the Deanery is guilty of serious breaches.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
And the Human Rights Commissioner. I think we can all
imagine the worst type of human rights abuses, like war
crimes and the like, but I don't imagine our commissioner
is tackling those cases on the regular is he? So
what are they looking at?

Speaker 2 (04:13):
So the Human Rights Commission doesn't actually publish its cases,
even anonymously, but we do see them as they filter
through to the Human Rights Review Triviunal. I think one
that stands out to me has been the case of
Judith Webe. She subjected her flatmate. He's a professional immigrant

(04:35):
who was trying to set up a place to live
when he got to New Zealand, and she's subjected him
to a racist tirade that was so severe that the
tribunal ordered that she paid him twenty eight thousand dollars.
That was a couple of years ago. So that's the
kind of ruling that the Human Rights Commissioner would deal

(05:00):
with first and then it goes up to the Human
Rights Review Tribunal.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So once the case gets to the tribunal level, so
to speak, what happens from there and how long can
these processes take?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
It can take two years, according to an OAA released
to NZME. I suppose, for context, high Court judges are
expected to deliver judgments within three months, while their average
is two years. In reality, we actually see people waiting
a lot longer than that. Some people there we've talked
to have waited two years after lodging a complaint to
get a hearing, and then they've waited another two years

(05:32):
to actually get a decision from there. Some experts speculate
that the various commissioner's ability to not award damages means
that people don't feel that justice has been achieved at
that lower level. So they kind of reach the end
of the road with the Privacy commission or the Human
Rights Commissioner and think, okay, so what now and the

(05:53):
what now is the Human Rights Review Tribunal?

Speaker 1 (05:56):
What are some more cases that you've covered from the tribunal?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Judith Weby is the one that again stands out for me.
She keeps cropping up over and about her again a
few more times, not through the tribunal, but that was
one that does stand out for me. There was another
really interesting one, a guy in the whited Upper called
Stephen Butcher. He objected to his photo being on his
driver's license because it was his interpretation that when you

(06:24):
encode a photograph digitally, it turns into a series of
zeros and ones, and those zeros and ones and his
estimation could spell out six sixty six or the mark
of the beast, and that went against his Christian religion.
That was a pretty wild case where they flew up
a historian from Dunedin to give the expert evidence on

(06:46):
this thousand year old piece of papyrus that Stephen Butcher
presented his evidence. Suffice to say, he did not win
that and he must have his photo on his driver's
license if he wants to drive like everyone else in
New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
I guess that's a perfect starting point to my next question,
I suppose, and I want to ask about what kinds
of cases can be heard and if there's any limit,
because based on some of your recent reporting and that
case that you've just told me there, it doesn't seem
like there is any limit. What can you tell me
about a man named Timing Zong.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yes, so, mister Zong has had five rulings through the tribunal.
Some of them have had more merit than others. One
of them, he took the Redhill Restaurant in Wellington to
the tribunal because he wanted to eat a meal called
a hot pot, which is generally shared, and he wanted
to just pay for one person, but he'd have to

(07:53):
pay the full sharing price as just the way the
restaurant and the meal is set up, so he took
them to the tribunal for that. He took Samsung to
the tribunal Samsung's New Zealand branch because his Chinese simcard
wouldn't work in his phone. He took Apple Apple New
Zealand sales to the tribunal because he claimed that his

(08:13):
iPad's voice function was racist. And he tried to take
the James Cook Hotel in Wellington to the tribunal as
well when they gave him Coke zero instead of Coke
no Sugar, which was what it was advertised on their menu.
The Tribunal was called many of his claims frivolous, but
they can't stop him making the claims and this is
where that triajin from the other three commissioners kind of

(08:35):
comes into play, and that Zen would have had to
take his complaints to any one of those three commissioners,
and it doesn't matter if they make a no finding.
He's ticked that box, so he can now take it
up another level. The Director of Human Rights proceedings's a
guy called Michael Timmins, and he's spoken to The Herald
before about how that triaging from those bottom or those
lower level commissioners needs to perhaps be more more effective,

(08:59):
or perhaps those commissioners need more power to stop frivolous
claims advancing and to help resolve claims before they need
to go up another level.

Speaker 4 (09:10):
The Human Rights Tribunal has found the Crown breached the
privacy of Kim dot Com. In twenty fifteen, the Attorney
General rejected dot COM's requests for access to all information
held about in my government ministers and departments. The reason
given was that the Internet mogul's request were vexatious and trivial.
Now the Tribunal has found there was a breach of
privacy and has now ordered the Attorney General to play

(09:33):
him ninety thousand dollars in damages.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
So I suppose anyone can just take a case up
if you've got the money for it. What sort of
impact does that have on the process.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
We actually see quite a few people self represented through
the tribunal, So there has been quite a few inmates
or former inmates taking the Department of Corrections through the
tribunal or breaches of privacy and a breach of privacy
here in this context is where you apply for information
from any agency new jay them. They don't have to

(10:07):
be government. You can apply for no leaning to send
you any information it has about you under the Privacy Act.
So we're seeing lots of people who apply for this
information and it's not released. It's a similar process to
the IA process. I suppose we see a lot of
people who don't have money for a lawyer. They will
actually just progress a claim self represented through the tribunal

(10:28):
and actually they do often have a fair bit of success.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
So if you don't have the money, but you do
feel like you've had your human rights breached, say what
are the options available to you? Then?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
So, as we mentioned before, you can self represent or
the Director of Human Rights Proceedings he is in a
tax funded position where he can take certain cases on
and progress them through the tribunal on your behalf. It's
quite an essential function because it means that people without
the means to take serious claims, or without the time,

(11:00):
energy or knowledge to research the Human Rights Act or
the Privacy Act or the Health and Disability Act, it
means they can be represented by someone who is familiar
with that and they can seek justice in that manner.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
You've spoken to people who have gone through these tribunal processes.
Do they feel like it's worth it?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
The phrase it's often touted as justice delayed is justice denied,
And when you're waiting four years sometimes from claim to ruling,
can probably feel like it's not with it. But then again,
there was a guy we covered, Malcolm King. He's claustrophobically
locked in a police cell, waited four years for a decision.
He said it was incredibly frustrating, but at the end

(11:42):
of the day he was represented for free by the
Director of Human Rights Proceedings and one forty five thousand dollars.
So incredibly frustrating to wait four years, but he didn't
need to pay for a lawyer out of any of
those fees. I suppose as another factor to again bring
it back to Judith withbe she was ordered to pay
twenty eight thousand dollars but hasn't paid it, so it

(12:04):
was it worth it for the complaint in there? Maybe not?
The government departments tend to pay up, but the tribunal
doesn't actually have the power to enforce its own orders.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
None of the.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Tribunals in New Zealand do. Finally enough, they can make
an order, but then it needs to be backed up
by the district court, at which point your bailiffs can
get involved, or you can get money taken directly from
a salary or a benefit. But again that takes more
time and energy.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
What's the argument for giving tribunals and review committees these
kind of things more powers.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
There's a Ministry of Justice kind of working group that
looked at this and they were looking at potentially giving
the dispute tribunal more power. One of their recommendations was
to actually double the damage's capped for the Disputes Tribunal
from thirty thousand dollars to sixty thousand dollars, which this
current government has has put forward, so that that's something
they're aiming to progress in terms of giving tribunals more power.

(13:00):
I don't think there is among experts and among the
recommendations that we've seen, that's not something that seems to
be on the table because New Zealand operates on a
trust basis. Right, you can go and buy, you can
fill your car up and then pay for petrol, for example,
and that kind of filters down into the way that
we operate as a society. We tend to trust people.

(13:21):
And ninety nine percent of people who have a tribunal
order made against them see you know, the Ministry of
Justice letterhead and they think, oh, I have to pay that,
and they don't look into it any further. But there
is a very small percentage in people who don't pay,
or perhaps can't pay so they won't pay. Undergoing massive
law changes in order to give tribunals more power. Is

(13:42):
that something and it's worth it? From the advice to
the Ministry, it isn't worth it.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Thanks for joining us, Jeremy.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
No worries.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news at
enzed Herald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Seals, Dan Goodwin is the sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the front page on iHeartRadio

(14:13):
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
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