Dame Sian Elias

Dame Sian Elias

By AUDREY YOUNG

The ceremonial first sitting of the Supreme Court will take place this morning in most unceremonial surroundings - in the basement floor of the High Court in Wellington with its five judges bearing no wigs or finery.

And the first proper hearing of the court next Wednesday is likely to be no more exalted an occasion.

A man convicted of stupefying, burglary, indecent assault, kidnapping and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection will seek the leave of the court to have his appeal heard.

Pourshad Marco Arvand had his sentence reduced by the Court of Appeal from 17 to 13 years but he wants the conviction overturned.

The basement will remain the temporary home of the court until the dilapidated High Court building in Wellington has been restored.

The Supreme Court replaces the Privy Council in London as New Zealand's final appellate court.

The passage of its enabling law through Parliament last year was marked by bitter disputes between those who argued it would give more people access to an appellate court and those who said there was no reason to dispense with such a legal body.

Today's ceremony will also mark the failure of a citizens initiated referendum launched last year by National, New Zealand First and Act to gather enough signatures for a referendum on the court.

To succeed, it needed about 310,000 signatures by tomorrow; it appears to have fallen short by about 300,000.

One of the petition organisers, Act MP Stephen Franks, said the motivation had gone out of it once the law had been passed in October last year.

He would turn up to the first sitting today because it was a constitutional occasion.

"Dumping what we had was a mistake but it's setting up for business."

Asked if he would be taking a particular interest in any tendency towards judicial activism, Mr Franks referred to a speech by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen on the subject and said: "I think my concerns about that are now felt even more intensely by the Government than by me."

Attorney-General Margaret Wilson said similar debates on judicial activism were occurring all over the world, and she had not seen Dr Cullen's speech as an attack on the judiciary.

She said the Supreme Court had been a long time coming. It had been first raised in 1904 "so we haven't done it quickly".