New front-row seat for Mika
Judge Michael Mika has become the first Pasifika judge appointed to a district court outside Auckland.
The former Manu Samoa rugby international and Highlanders prop will be a resident judge at the Hutt Valley District Court in Lower Hutt. Mika was welcomed in to his new role by Te A¯ ti Awa, the Hutt Valley Pasifika community, colleagues and other dignitaries with a po¯whiri at Lower Hutt’s Waiwhetu¯ Marae yesterday.
The son of Samoan parents who arrived in New Zealand in the 1960s, his appointment has been hailed as a victory for diversity, but Mika was quick to point out diversity had to be combined with substance. He said he brought with him not only a different cultural lens, but a perspective informed by a different lifeexperience – having grown up in a working-class migrant family.
Last month at Mika’s swearing in, Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu said Mika represented the transformative vision for New Zealand’s judicial system.
His arrival in the valley is a homecoming of sorts – Mika was born in Lower Hutt and raised in Upper Hutt.
Following a rugby career which included 15 caps for Manu Samoa, and appearances at the 1995 and 1999 World
Cups, he became a lawyer, practising in Otago, Southland and England.
He also played rugby for the Highlanders, Otago and the Southland Stags.
Mika was most recently a director of
Invercargill law firm Preston Russell Law, which he joined in 2003.
After his po¯whiri he told Stuff sitting on the other side of the bench was going to be a big learning curve and his desire was to simply ‘‘give people a fair crack’’.