Queen’s Birthday Honours 2016: Sir Ronald Young
There is hardly a court in the land where this new knight hasn't sat.
There is hardly a court in the land where this new knight hasn’t sat.
He retired to the Wairarapa last year after 27 years on the bench, serving first in the District Court at Dunedin in 1988 with a jury and youth warrant.
After graduating from the University of Otago, he started his legal career with Dunedin firm Miram & Wilson in 1974. The next year he moved north to Hamilton and McCaw Lewis Chapman, where he was a partner for 11 years from 1977.
Sir Ronald, 64, was the chief District Court judge from 1993-2001 and, in a rare move by the then attorney-general Margaret Wilson, was promoted to the High Court where he stayed until his retirement, which is relatively early compared with many of his colleagues.
"I do think it's important for judges to have an expiry date – you can just go on for too long," he said at the time.
He also sat on the divisional courts of the Court of Appeal and remains a judge of the Vanuatu Court of Appeal.
Sir Ronald was once nicknamed “Red Ron” for helping a colleague to run for Parliament and his political sympathies have made him controversial in some quarters.
Many of his trials were high-profile criminal cases but he backed the government over the Maori Council’s bid to prevent partial privatisation of Mighty River Power in 2012.
That decision was upheld by the Supreme Court.
He worked as a journalist while studying law and took an interest in media cases. An NBR profile in 2012 says he ruled in favour of Helen Clark that the "Corngate" affair on TV3 was unfair and upheld complaints by Peter Dunne and John Anderton when they were excluded from a leaders' debate, also on TV3.
He was also a member of the Chief Justice’s panel reviewing media access to the courts, including the use of sound recordings and cameras.
In 2000-01, he was president of the Electoral Commission, which was disestablished in 2010 and then reconstituted as an independent Crown entity.
Tune into NBR Radio’s Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson on Sunday morning, for analysis and feature-length interviews.
Nevil Gibson
Mon, 06 Jun 2016
Mon, 06 Jun 2016
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Queen’s Birthday Honours 2016: Sir Ronald Young
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