Justice Precinct ‘blandly anonymous’
High-profile lawyer Nigel Hampton says Christchurch’s new Justice and Emergency Services Precinct is ‘‘amorphous and blandly anonymous’’.
The QC questioned the wisdom of having the police and courts in the same complex because it was ‘‘a dangerous blurring of the necessary separation of the executive on the one hand, from the judicial branch on the other’’.
Hampton made the comments as the High Court held its ceremonial final sitting in the court house on Durham St North yesterday.
The courts begin work at the $300 million justice precinct – which will also house police and Corrections – on Monday.
Hampton told High Court justices it was ‘‘beyond belief’’ the city was losing its great judicial canopy – a spectacular kauri woodwork on the court’s facing wall.
The woodwork was originally in the Victorian-era Supreme Court building that stood on the bank of the Avon River nearby.
While the new Court House was built in the 1980s, lawyer Tony Hearn hunted the dais down and found it in containers in the Ministry of Works yards in Blenheim Rd. It was restored and installed in the two-storey No 1 High Court on the fourth level of the Christchurch Court House, which opened in 1989.
Hampton, who unsuccessfully petitioned the Ministry of Justice to incorporate the dais into the precinct, said the great wooden canopy was ‘‘the last reminder of the first Supreme Court in the city’’, Hampton said. The ministry said it could not be used in the precinct courtrooms because of its ceiling heights and other design elements.
Hampton said: ‘‘Why we are saying farewell to it now is beyond belief ... It is an insult to history and heritage to see it go.’’
Justice Rachel Dunningham, one of the High Court Judges sitting in Christchurch, said the canopy would become ‘‘a museum piece’’.
Lawyer Craig Ruane said the eight portraits of Christchurch justices, which hang on the court’s walls, would not go to the new precinct because they ‘‘don’t fit with the Ministry of Justice design aesthetics’’.
Some of the portraits will go to the refurbished historic Dunedin Court House. Others will go to local law firms and the University of Canterbury Law Library.
Justice Dunningham, who presided over the last murder trial to be held in the Court House, spoke of famous trials held there.
‘‘They were cases that shocked us, cases that tested the limits of what we can know with certainty when we examine evidence through the criminal trial process.’’
Last month, it emerged the Public Service Association (PSA) had raised concerns with the ministry about the precinct’s proposed ‘‘soft security’’ and aspects of its design.
The ministry originally planned ‘‘soft’’ security for the courts building with multiple entrances to the public foyer, with security scanning on the first floor, but now both ground floor entrances will have screening stations.
Security staff remained unhappy about the presence of a coffee kiosk in the atrium, because of the risk ‘‘volatile’’ court clients could throw hot liquids over people, PSA national organiser Tracy Klenner said.