April 29, 2008...6:40 am
Key Ellis case figure Val Sim appointed to board supposed to restore confidence in the justice system
But for an email from an alert reader of this blog, I would have missed this one.
Lawyer and Law Commissioner Val Sim, who has spent a good part of her career helping to ensure the Peter Ellis case does not get the high-level scrutiny it deserves, has been appointed to a new government board created to improve public confidence in the criminal justice system.
The pivotal role Val Sim played in what has been our gravest miscarriage of justice since Arthur Thomas was framed for the Crewe murders was analysed in great depth in two articles written for the Law Journal late last year by Wellington researcher Ross Francis.
Francis revealed Sim as working quietly within the Ministry of Justice over a number of years, advising other officials, judges and politicians not to grant Peter Ellis a pardon and not to allow a full commission of inquiry into the 1993 case, in which Ellis was convicted on 16 fantastic counts of abusing small children at the Christchurch Civic Creche, where he was a daycare worker.
I wrote an article about Francis’s research here, and his two articles can be read here.
Val Sim’s legal career spans 28 years. She was made chief legal counsel at the Ministry of Justice in 1998, before moving to Crown Law in 2004, becoming Crown Counsel and team leader on the human rights team there. Last year she was appointed to the Law Commission, an august body presided over by Sir Geoffrey Palmer and which recommends changes to our laws.
Announcing the appointment of Val Sim and six others to the new Criminal Justice Advisory Board, Justice Minister Annette King said the board was being created in response to a call by Ombudsman Mel Smith for “the restoration of public and political confidence in the criminal justice sector, and a more rational and informed public debate about the criminal justice system.”
It will advise King and her associate justice ministers.
I doubt many critics of the way the Ellis case has been handled will view Sim’s appointment to the board as helping to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system. The reader who brought it to my attention said “somebody has a sick sense of humour.”
The board will be chaired by former Secretary for Justice David Oughton, with its other members being Margaret Eames, Nigel Hampton QC, Judge Margaret Lee, Major Campbell Roberts and Lynette Stewart.
The appointment of Christchurch silk Nigel Hampton is interesting. Until he fell ill, he represented Peter Ellis for a time, preparing his appeal. When I last spoke to him about this case, in 1995, he was completely convinced that the case against Ellis was a crock. He and Val Sim could be in for some interesting discussions.
11 Comments
April 29, 2008 at 10:38 am
What’s interesting is that the Justice Minister has apparently ignored the concerns that were raised in my research about Val Sim. Annette King was sent a copy of my research on November 30, 2007. She will have been aware of the extent to which Sim has been involved in denying Ellis justice.
The Minister needs to explain why she appointed Sim given the serious concerns that have been expressed about Sim’s judgement and (lack of)impartiality. I have written to Sim on two occasions asking her to explain, for example, why she was so concerned about the effect an inquiry into the Ellis case might have on the “personal reputations” of the creche children’s interviewers, the complainants and their families, and why she had not expressed any concern for the eleven creche workers or their families. She has not responded.
April 29, 2008 at 10:38 am
Ms Sim was, also, the person at Crown Law who signed off the EFA. An act that the Law Society, amongst others, suggested be junked at the committee stage.
April 29, 2008 at 11:18 am
I am amazed at the continued preferment of Ms Sim.
April 29, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I don’t like to speculate on such matters but in this case I will.
It would seem to be a classic situation where who you know rather than what you know has resulted in Ms Sims’ steady rise through the “ranks”.
April 29, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I am absolutely staggered at the decision to appoint Val Sim to such a position “to improve public confidence in the criminal justice system”. Ms Sim has personally done as much as any other individual in New Zealand to undermine such confidence.
Her actions in the Peter Ellis case have been well documented in the research findings of Ross Francis in the NZ Law Journal. The Ellis website shows Sim’s role in a graphic:
http://www.peterellis.org.nz/docs/2008/val_sim.htm
Also recently published are letters by Ross Francis - a letter to Val Sim in November 2007, and a recent letter to the Ministry of Justice CEO Belinda Clark
http://www.peterellis.org.nz/docs/2008/index.htm
The Ministry of Justice staff, including Val Sim, are personally blamed for delays in achieving justice by Rex Haig, who had remarkably consistent experiences as Peter Ellis from those same officials. He told me at the Miscarriages of Justice Conference in Auckland that he was “blocked at every turn” by justice department backroom bureaucrats.
April 29, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Great graphic!
Isn’t there a Dalziel working in the PM’s office as well?
April 29, 2008 at 6:11 pm
I don’t like to speculate on such matters but in this case I will. It would seem to be a classic situation where who you know rather than what you know has resulted in Ms Sims’ steady rise through the “ranks”.
Val Sim demonstrably has the qualifications and experience for her very senior positions, and I am sure she performs her work to a high standard.
Please confine any criticisms to clearly defined professional issues such as her work on the Ellis case.
April 29, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Please confine any criticisms to clearly defined professional issues such as her work on the Ellis case.
Good on you maintaining standards, Poneke.
After all, Journalist Karl du Fresne provides a “Warning” today that “blogs are dangerous”. Thankfully he tells us that “Poneke’s is a relatively gentle blog”, but warns us that others may be less so:
“Some of these are quite rough and hostile. They are extremely remote and attract a lot of undesirables.” Apparently, according to du Fresne, the blogosphere may even give exposure to “infantile abuse and personal invective”
Long may Poneke’s be gentle.
[Poneke says: Knowing Karl, I am sure his tongue was hard in his cheek.]
April 29, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I think you’ll find Val Sim’s work on the EFA to be fairly suspect, and instantly rewarded with her position on the Law Commission and now she gets another remunerated posy.
But you only want to question her performance on your pet case?
Sorry just found what I was looking for, Stephen Franks comment on Ms Sims prowess.
“I understand that Ms Sim was the author (or at least in charge of the author) of the Crown Law opinion on the Electoral Finance Bill. It is a pitiful piece of legal work, an advocacy opinion, written to help a client defending the indefensible to claim an arguable case.”
April 30, 2008 at 12:25 am
“Crony Watch” of The National Business Review (24 April) makes special mention of Sim, referring to both her role in the Electoral Finance Bill, and the Peter Ellis case.
Crony Watch notes that Sim “was appointed as a law commissioner mere weeks after rubberstamping the government’s draconian Electoral Finance Bill as not breaching the right to freedom of expression.”
Crony Watch also notes, under a heading “A Committee Possessed” that Sim “is experienced in criminal law matters, having previously been a chief legal counsel for the Ministry of Justice. In this role, she helped build public confidence in the criminal justice system by standing firm in her opinion (to the minister of justice) that the widely mistrusted conviction of Peter Ellis on child molestation charges should not be reviewed by an inquiry, nor a pardon granted.”
April 30, 2008 at 12:31 am
Poneke’s highlighting of the need to deal with specifics raises an issue not too often raised in public in regard to the Ellis case. An issue usually raised only behind closed doors.
For sixteen years those who labour to overturn the conviction of Peter Ellis and who question the processes surrounding the prosecution of Ellis and his female co-workers have laboured under a severe handicap. This handicap is a direct result of the suppression rulings that surround the case.
The onus of proof for overturning a conviction falls upon the convicted party. In the Ellis case much of evidence for a miscarriage of justice involves the behaviour of persons during and post the investigation, often the very people who have subsequently had their identity suppressed by court order. In the general case suppression orders of this kind are to be applauded as they protect victims of heinous crime.
However suppression orders in the Ellis case have served to cloud the course of justice. People directly involved in the case are said to hold high position and have the ear of the very institutions charged with administering justice.
The convictions are so obviously unsound and the judicial system’s failure to acknowledge such has been so frequently raised, that one really has to ask why. And many have.
Has it simply been a systemic failure?
After many years of personal research into the case I am of the opinion that the system has allowed for the possibility that individuals involved in the case have subsequently influenced the administration of justice. Unfortunately this premise cannot be publicly proved or disproved under current court orders. And whose fault is that?
We do need to restore confidence in the administration of justice, but require a fresh palette.
Ms Sim does not fit the bill.
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