October 30, 2013
Henare sets sights on justice
A constellation of stars from the Maori and legal worlds have witnessed the swearing in of Denese Henare as the country’s newest judge.
The district courtroom at Auckland was packed with people from Judge Henare’s Ngati Hine iwi as well as from Tainui, with whom she worked on treaty claims for almost 30 years.
She paid tribute to the many people she has worked for and with over the years, singling out judges Sir Edward Durie and Mick Brown, and fellow members of the team that worked on the major treaty cases of the 1980s, Dame Sian Elias, who is now Chief Justice, and Justice Sir David Baragwanath.
She says having been part of a group of women lawyers in the 1970s who pushed for women to have better access to the law, she was inspired by Dame Sian’s recent call for improved access to law and justice for all.
"If the new horizons are the old horizons, we have failed. If the positions we achieve do not lead to changes for better justice in our societies, for men as well as women, for children as well as adults, for all races, we will have failed," she says.
Judge Henare will sit in Auckland, and will have particular responsibility for accident compensation appeals.
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