Appendix 2: CV of Hon Justice Lowell Goddard
Career
Justice Lowell Goddard is a serving Judge of the
High Court of New Zealand and a highly respected member of the
judiciary who has been at the forefront of criminal law and procedure.
Graduating with an LLB from the University of Auckland
in 1974 she was admitted to the Bar in 1975. In 1977 she commenced
practice as a barrister and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1988.
In her earlier years of practice as a barrister she
worked as a member of the steering committee which helped establish
the HELP Clinic for sexual abuse victims (assisting Police to
establish a better environment for and approach to the examination
and interviewing of victims of sexual abuse); as a member of the
Race Relations Conciliators advisory committee on youth and law;
as a participant in the youth advocacy pilot for children and
young people; as a board member of Odyssey House for drug dependency;
and as a member of the department of Social Welfare's children-in-care
review panel.
She was appointed Deputy Solicitor-General for New
Zealand in 1992 and then to the High Court bench in December 1995.
She has also sat as a member of the Criminal Division of the
Court of Appeal.
In 2007 she was appointed Chair of the Independent
Police Conduct Authority, the first New Zealand woman to hold
the position. Whilst she was Chair the authority released a report
on the outcome of its inquiry into Police handling of child abuse
cases (begun in August 2009).
Through her work at the IPCA Justice Goddard was
elected as an independent expert to the United Nations Subcommittee
on Prevention of Torture, which is a human rights body with international
oversight of places of custody and detention.
In June 2014 she was appointed a Dame Companion of
the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to law.
Personal Life
Born 25 November 1948 in Auckland, New Zealand she
is married to Christopher John Hodson QC and has three step-children
and one daughter from her first marriage.
Her interests are gardening, her family and grandchildren,
and thoroughbred racing, breeding and eventing. She is a supporter
of SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and
Amnesty International. Justice Goddard is also on the Grants Committee
of the CatWalk Trust for spinal cord injury research and was on
the board of trustees for Idea Services (formerly the Intellectually
Handicapped Children's Society).
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