At the President’s request, I represented New Zealand at the recent audio-visual meeting of the ANAO group. Copy of the minutes is attached as required.
The ANAO is a group of the IAJ and covers Canada, the USA, and around the Pacific Rim as far as Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Recently the ANAO group and IAJ generally have been doing a lot of work on unconscious or implicit bias in decision making. They are particularly wishing to address issues such as what is being done to encourage diversity and what representation of the public it serves and how to achieve diversity. If anyone is interested in contributing to these issues, the ANAO please contact the President and he would put you in contact with the relevant people within the IJA/ANAO groups.
Due to amazing work by the International Women Judges Association, some Afghan judges have been resettled to New Zealand and Australia and the work done through contact with local groups has proved invaluable. Similar reports appear to be coming in in relation to Ukraine although they are not part of our group.
The main issue that I wish to discuss is the issue of membership of small countries such as the Caribbean nations and the Pacific nations in the IJA. This vote did not reach the entrenched threshold at the last IJA meeting due to the fact that not all countries were present at the meeting. The matter was then put to a sub-committee and the former President of the IAJ and committee member Tony Pagone reported on the outcome of that committee. The committee is going to report to the IAJ that there will be no change to the membership rules.
This was deeply disappointing for New Zealand, Australia, and Bermuda in particular. Very strong statements were made by a number of countries including New Zealand that IAJ was absolutely vital to maintain judicial independence throughout the Pacific, particularly in light of recent events with Mainland China. Judge Clifton of the US Federal Judges Association indicated that he was a member of the Pacific Judicial Conference and that the support of IAJ was absolutely vital in the future for smaller nations. Australia reinforced and added to the comments made by both myself and Judge Clifton. I consider that IAJ is losing a huge opportunity to include a group of African American countries in the Caribbean and within the Pacific which would add to the diversity and lead to a significant opportunity for exchange of information and assistance.
On another note, all countries noted the impact of COVID-19 and its impact on the conduct of Court work. Clearly, there has been a strong move in most countries to either full AVL hearings or hybrid hearings for most matters. Of course, as in New Zealand, the issue of criminal trials constitutes a continuing difficulty.