The most obvious next step for Ghahraman is the same as it would be for anyone else. The police investigation will conclude with police deciding whether or not to charge her. If she is charged, the justice system will take its course.
Where things get slightly more interesting is what a potential conviction would mean for Ghahraman’s role as an MP.
The Electoral Act says an MP’s seat is vacated if they are convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment for life or by two or more years’ imprisonment.
If the goods allegedly shoplifted were worth more than $1000, and Ghahraman were convicted, it would trigger that part of the Electoral Act, vacating her seat. The next MP on the Green Party list, former Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, would take her place.
But that is not the extent of Ghahraman’s concerns.
She also has a party process to contend with, as a member of the Green caucus. This process would be unlikely to see her booted from Parliament, but could end in a situation where she leaves the Green caucus, fighting on as an independent.
The Green Party has its own set of processes for dealing with alleged misconduct from an MP - although this has been messy and sloppily applied in the past; just think of last year’s investigation into then-MP Elizabeth Kerekere.
The ultimate sanction is for the Green Party caucus to expel Ghahraman from its ranks. This could occur relatively quickly. The caucus would meet and decide whether it would expel Ghahraman. She would then sit as an independent MP, until she resigned or lost her seat at the next election.
The party could “waka jump” Ghahraman, which would see her ejected from Parliament, but given the Greens’ strong aversion to waka jumping (ironically, Ghahraman herself led the effort to repeal the law), this seems highly unlikely.
There is some awkwardness around this process too. Under the Greens’ constitution, any Green member can show up to attend caucus, subject to some rules - quite unlike other parties, when not even most staff and aides attend. Crucially, however, only MPs (and co-leaders, in the rare event a co-leader is not an MP), have voting rights.
Any such investigation would take some time. This means that the party and going down this route seems unlikely.
The most important thing at the moment is to know Ghahraman’s version of events. An admission or denial radically changes the next course of action.
If she admits the allegations are true, it’s likely the party and Ghahraman would mutually agree she should resign gracefully, allowing the party to move on quickly.
Ghahraman could give a valedictory speech to Parliament and be gone early in the new year. If the allegations are true, a quick resignation seems like the most likely outcome. It could happen very quickly - particularly as Ghahraman is now back in the country.
If, however, Ghahraman denies what she’s been accused of, the party faces the choice of whether to investigate her anyway, to see whether it is satisfied that no misconduct has occurred, all the while awaiting the outcome of the police investigation and any charges and judicial process that might follow it.
None of these options are particularly enticing. The best possible outcome is a total exoneration from the party and the law - but this will take time, time when the Greens want to be positioning themselves for the long march back into government.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
