The 2024 Elite Woman shares why we need women in human rights law
Earlier this month, Sonja Cooper told NZ Lawyer why she’s OK to retire with a “troublemaker” reputation. In the third part of this interview, she discusses the Royal Commission and the government’s response, Gen Z’s interest in human rights issues, and the importance of women to human rights work.
The Royal Commission made about 95 recommendations in 2021, and I think so far, only about three of them have been implemented or partly implemented; that was in relation to redress. The final report made another 90 recommendations, and we’re seeing little movement. And so I say, what was the point of this extraordinary, expensive Royal Commission if successive governments are just going to cherry pick little bits and and essentially do nothing?
One of the things that we've been pushing is investing in making right the wrongs that the state has perpetrated, then hopefully marginalise or even negate the intergenerational impacts that have existed so far. And making sure that survivors have proper compensation and that they have all the well-being and support services that should be available to them, that they shouldn't have to scrap for.
And there needs to be some basic law changes – get rid of the Limitation Act (2010) for survivors of abuse. Eliminate the accident compensation limitation for this group of clients, make it easier to get damages. Make the court processes easier and more navigable. Make legal aid funding easier and better for lawyers so that more lawyers actually want to do it, because at the moment, the pay rates are so bad. We're the only law firm that specialises in this after 30 years.
I think that the Gen Z population is very focused on human rights, and there is a lot of interest in our work now. We're in the process of hiring at the moment, and I think in this round, we've had more applications than we've had for years. I guess one of the challenges, I think, is the need for resilience. Because, as I said, you can't gain resilience doing this job, you actually have to have resilience because it is really demanding.
I think the problem that there’s just a handful of lawyers in New Zealand [in human rights law] because you usually have to do it on a pro bono basis or through Legal Aid, which pays terribly. But a lot of young lawyers and women volunteer at Community Law Centres, which is a great place to be exposed to human rights issues. They might volunteer at the SPCA or other similar organisations that are looking after animals – that exposes you to animal rights issues.
It is a real area where there is a big legal need. A majority of our lawyers are women and they do an excellent job. Empathy is required, and I think many have had their own life experiences that help them understand the shoes that the clients are walking in. If not, they just have that keen interest and awareness of human rights issues that enables them to do the job really well.
I think you learn a lot about yourself, but you also learn so much more about the society in which we live. And you can become quite cynical about the state – honestly, when I embarked on this work, I had no idea about this terrible underbelly, and I had no idea about the cynical power of the state either. So experiencing that as a New Zealander was a bit of a shock for me. But you certainly grow doing this work. Ask any lawyer who works here, they'll all talk to you about the value of it and how good it feels to support someone to have a voice and to support them through the journey of some sort of outcome. We all have a slightly different motivation for wanting to do it, but at the end of the day, that's what keeps us all going, I think, is that helping someone to actually be heard, for a start, what's the most important part, and then helping to achieve some outcome for them.
