Law Society president under investigation
Radio NZ reports:
The Law Society says Frazer Barton will take a leave of absence from his position as president of the organisation while a complaint against him is addressed.
A formal complaint has been laid against Barton after the Royal Commission of Inquiry report indicated he had advised a church group to destroy records for children in its care. …
The background is reported by the Herald:
According to the Royal Commission of Inquiry abuse in care final report, records were destroyed because a senior staff member at Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) decided they were “too much of a risk”.
Between 2017 and 2018, the former chief executive of PSO, Gillian Bremner, instructed a staff member to destroy all records belonging to children and young people who had stayed in its residential homes. …
The report reveals the former CEO sought advice from lawyer Frazer Barton, who was a PSO board member at the time, about the wholesale destruction of all records.
According to the commission’s report, Barton, who is now the president of the New Zealand Law Society, told Bremner she was legally obliged to provide the documents requested by the survivor, but that all other documents could be destroyed.
According to information in the commission’s report, Benton told Bremner she could destroy the documents, “but at an appropriate milestone or anniversary”.
It is unclear from the reports about the state of mind of those who advised on and made the decision. If it was to protect the institution from repetitional damage or a future inquiry, then they clearly acted wrongly.
A benign interpretation is that Benton merely advised that you should have a written policy to retain records for x years, and then records older than that can be disposed of.
Another interpretation is that they wanted an excuse to destroy the records, and the advise was along the lines of you can’t do it ad hoc, but can do it based on a time based policy. That would be legally correct but morally wrong.
At the end of the day, you have to wonder why you would need to destroy these records.