The Judges Association of New Zealand (JANZ) was invited to comment on the cross-bench judicial wellness programme “Mauri Tu”. You can read our submission here.
This submission reflects two JANZ objectives:
To assist, encourage, provide for, and promote wellness and pastoral care for the judiciary and their families.
To support Heads of Bench in relevant jurisdictions in relation to issues affecting the judiciary and their families.
JANZ welcomes the programme — it has been a long time coming. JANZ will always seek to work in a complementary way on issues affecting judges. The submission has been developed on an understanding that our response and actions must evolve to reflect emerging needs and evidence, but our overarching framework and three guiding principles will remain constant. Judge and family-led, judicial connectedness, and protection of judicial independence.
Now that Mauri Tu is available, it provides an opportunity for JANZ to help with:
Empowering judge-led solutions for better work-life balance
Psychosocial wellbeing by collegial engagement
Equipping judges and their whanau to look after their own mental wellbeing
The ‘long handshake’ for a vibrant and healthy judicial life from induction through retirement.
The key message would be to ensure all judges and their close family members enjoy a healthy work-life balance and gain access to a broad range of assistance in total confidentiality throughout their career.
For ease of reference, we comment on the programme and make our submissions in the sequence of the draft proposal.