Ruth Hill
Wellington, March 24, 2018
Nearly 90% of criminal lawyers who responded to an anonymous survey have experienced or seen bullying and harassment in the last four years – and the worst offenders were judges.
The Survey follows revelations of sexual assaults and inappropriate sexual conduct involving interns and senior lawyers at a leading public law firm, Russell McVeagh.
Criminal Bar Association Vice-President Elizabeth Hall, who instigated the Survey, said the “staggering” results were “obviously of deep concern to both the Association and the Law Society.”
Types of abuse include shouting, insults and threats, and nearly one in three had experienced unwelcome sexual attention.
Silent sufferers
In nearly 65% of cases, the person doing the harassing or bullying was a judge.
Fewer than 17% of respondents made an official complaint – mainly because they believed it would not make any difference and they were afraid of the repercussions.
Of those who did complain, just 6% felt this fixed the problem.
“Often times people don’t want to generate an official complaint and then have the focus on them and their experience. They just want to feel the behaviour is going to be addressed in some way it’s going to be stopped in some way, without it leading to the very serious consequences that a complaint to the Law Society might have,” Ms Hall said.
Survey Results
Of the 283 respondents (181 women, 102 men), about 60% had been in practice more than nine years
88.1% had personally experienced or witnessed bullying or harassment in the last four years
Most commonly type of bullying: mockery (69.2%); invalid criticism (60%); shouting (58%), bullying based on age/experience (57%); personal insults (45%), unwelcome sexual attention (28.5%) and threats (27.3%)
Effect of the bullying/harassment: stress, loss of confidence, anxiety, fear, moved jobs
“Better ways of dealing with bullying were needed, Ms Hall said.
Some respondents advocated being able to raise issues in an anonymous way, asking for a senior colleague to review an incident or having a formal mentoring system.
Entrenched Hierarchy
“The law profession was not alone in having with problems with harassment or abuse. But what is unique to the sphere of criminal practice is this very entrenched hierarchical structure governed by people who have come up through this system in which you go down to court and have strips torn off you by the judge or opposing council, you patch yourself up and do it again the next day.
“That was the practice 20 or 30 years ago – but times have changed, people have moved on and that sort of thing is no longer acceptable,” she said.
Government taking survey seriously – Jan Logie
Deeply Worrying
Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice and Green Party MP Jan Logie told TV3’s Newshub Nation that the Survey results were deeply worrying, and the government was taking it seriously.
She said that she was especially concerned by the number of judges implicated.
“One of the barriers for people reporting to the police and going through that court process, if they look and see that the judges are complicit in bullying or sexual harassment, that’s not building confidence and is a problem.
“We need to make sure our policies are kind to people making complaints and victims.”
Ruth Hall is a Radio New Zealand Reporter. Indian Newslink has published the above Report under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
(Sexual harassment Chart from iPleaders Blog)
