Chief Ombudsman Judge Peter Boshier will turn 72 on Saturday, and under the 49-year-old Ombudsman Act that means that he is no longer eligible for the position.
His second five-year term would finish at the end of next year.
He can stay in place until the next chief ombudsman is appointed, although it is not clear how long that might take.
He will have been aware of the law regarding his age, and we are not privy to whether he wished to complete the full five years, but that has not stopped conjecture about the situation.
Commentators have questioned whether this is an infringement of human rights because it is age discrimination.
It has also been pointed out that because the appointment is only made for a five-year term, when an incumbent is being considered for reappointment their ability to do the job could be evaluated then.
Whether there is any appetite by the government to revisit the relevant legislation in this term is unclear, but there has been no suggestion it will invoke urgency (again) to resolve Judge Boshier’s situation.
No concerns have been raised about Judge Boshier’s ability to do the job. Indeed, last month he demonstrated his sharpness with a blistering report on the practices of Oranga Tamariki calling for profound changes to the way the beleaguered organisation operates.
Nor were there any concerns when he was reappointed by Parliament, effective from December 10, 2020.
Moving his reappointment, then leader of the House of Representatives Chris Hipkins said Judge Boshier had brought a galvanising approach to the office which should be generally welcomed by the public.
He referred to the work Judge Boshier had done to speed up the handling of complaints and increase compliance with the Official Information Act.
Judge Boshier has been a great ambassador for the Office of the Ombudsman, fronting up to the media to speak forthrightly about his various investigations, and getting out and about to engage with the wider public.
The raised profile of the office as a result may have increased the workload for his team, but we doubt that would have bothered him.
According to the office’s website, his focus has been on a faster and more effective resolution of Official Information Act and other complaints, working with government agencies to improve their practices and strengthening his team’s investigation and monitoring of prisons and public mental health facilities.
These are all areas where there is still work to be done.
Some of the harshest criticism from Judge Boshier has involved how our prisons are treating inmates. (The office regularly visits prisons as part of our obligations under the United Nations agreement, the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.)
He has been frustrated at the glacial pace of change over such things as unreasonable lock-up hours, lack of privacy in toilet and shower areas and facilities beyond their use-by date.
Concerned that lip service was being paid to many calls for improvement, he held a special investigation into the Department of Corrections’ responses, or lack thereof.
In his report on this, issued last year, he found legal rights and interests of prisoners had been too easily and unreasonably overlooked, and the department had not sufficiently had the fair, safe and humane treatment of prisoners at the centre of its decision-making.
With the prison population set to increase under the current government, these issues cannot be ignored.
We hope Judge Boshier’s eventual replacement will share his doggedness, eloquence and unflinching passion for fairness.
He has set a shining example and whoever is next in this pivotal role has an ideal role model to follow as they make the job their own.
