What was that judge thinking?

That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible.

There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on the case in Stuff in 2016 and another story about them working together in the New Zealand Herald in February 2018. 

Why Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself from Ghahraman’s court appearance on shoplifting charges this week is a question only she can answer. The former MP pleaded guilty but the conflict of interest is so obvious as to be laughable.

This piece of news became known later in the day of the court appearance. Callers to talkback radio identified the issue that night, and Cam Slater unearthed the two historic news reports on the BFD the following morning.

The topic was running hot on Twitter (X) all day Thursday and Philip Crump from Newstalk ZB Plus published a lengthy story on the matter late on Thursday afternoon, seeking comment from the Chief District Court Judge.

(The Chief DCJ’s response is that at the hearing “no perceived conflict was raised.” The PR statement went on to say “as the matter is still before the court it would not be appropriate to comment further.”)

Crump, being the top lawyer that he is, goes on to explain the District Court Recusal Guidelines.  Again, the wording is so clear cut it beggars belief Judge Pecotic did not recuse herself.

“The guiding principle is that a Judge is disqualified from sitting if in the circumstances there is a real possibility that in the eyes of a fair-minded and fully informed observer the Judge might not be impartial in reaching a decision in the case.”

(Emphasis added)

We know the New Zealand legal and judicial community is relatively small. Many a time a lawyer will appear before a judge they may once have been in the same firm as.

But that’s when a lawyer is representing a client.

Not many lawyers will have sat in the dock as accused criminals in front of a judge they were once a colleague of, and in the Court of Appeal no less.

In my social circle, I am acquaintances, possibly even friends, with two DCJs. If I was to appear in front of either of them charged with a crime, I would expect them to recuse themselves. If they didn’t, I would ask my lawyer to raise the matter. That is the only fair and decent thing to do in an honest society.

Until 6pm Thursday, Crump’s was the only report from what you might call the mainstream media to report of what is surely a salient fact in the Ghahraman saga. Yet his story is behind a paywall, and his colleagues at neither the New Zealand Herald or Newstalk ZB itself have not thought the issue worthwhile to follow up.

It goes without saying that Stuff, RNZ and Newshub did not bother with this new development in the story either.

1 News led the bulletin with it on Thursday night but the conflict issue was not mentioned in a long website post on Ghahraman’s offending.

Which begs the question — why?

As citizens we should be outraged at this.

The hearing was brought forward a week at very short notice. Is that because Judge Pecotic would be sitting on Wednesday and could help her erstwhile lawyer colleague?

Will  the same judge conduct the sentencing in June?

If she is, will the prosecution counsel raise this obvious conflict then?

The days since Ghahraman’s guilty plea have been a triumph for social media and citizen journalism.

And the mainstream outlets wonder why they’re going broke and the public is losing trust in them.

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