Former judge won't be silenced by Attorney-General

A former appeal court judge who labelled the convictions of the Lombard Finance directors as a "grievous miscarriage of justice" says despite the convention of withholding comment on court decisions he could not remain silent.

Speaking on TV3's The Nation Sir Edmund Thomas said he disagrees with Attorney-General Chris Finlayson's view that the convention of not commenting is absolute.

"I have conceded that there is a convention, but that it's not an absolute rule that you don't comment. The Attorney-General is saying there is an absolute rule that once you're a retired judge you can't write an article criticising a court decision. I think that in the circumstances here I was justified to write the article," Sir Edmund says.

"We've got a situation now where I felt very strongly that these directors did not deserve to be convicted - it is a grievous miscarriage of justice. Therefore I felt I should write the article."

He says in his critique of the judgement he wrote "If you cannot accept that a company or a finance company can fail through no fault of the directors read no further".

Sir Edmund says the Lombard Finance directors should not be responsible for the failure of a company, and the collapse of the company was not to do with the prospectus as they were charged.

"They genuinely believed the prospectus was true. There was no complaint about them being negligent in any respect. No complaint about mismanagement and the governance of the company couldn't be faulted."

He says he felt a great deal sympathy for those who had lost their life savings with the collapse of the company, but says a judge must exercise "strict intellectual rigour" and not be swayed by public sentiment when it comes to settling on a verdict.

"If I had been sitting I would have struggled with that, but ultimately the collapse of the company had nothing to do with the charge before the court. The charge before the court was that the prospectus was misleading and in my view it is quite clear that it was not," Sir Edmund says.

Sir Edmund says there are those who believe if the trial had been at the Privy Council - away from the pressure of New Zealand there would have been a different result. But he says he is confident the Supreme Court is performing well.

"I've been very pleased with the way the Supreme Court has performed. I think it is a good court - I think the Chief Justice is a top Chief Justice - though she wont be altogether pleased with me at the moment."