High Court associate judge appointed

Peter John Andrew has been appointed as an associate judge of the High Court of New Zealand.

The new associate judge will be sworn in on 23 March and will sit in Auckland, Attorney-General David Parker announced.

In 1984, Andrew finished his BA and LLB degrees from the University of Otago and joined Meredith Connell, which to this day is still the Office of the Crown Solicitor for Auckland.

In 1990, he joined Russell McVeagh in Auckland after finishing his LLM in public international law at the University of Kiel in Germany. He joined the firm as a senior solicitor, and specialised in employment law and commercial litigation.

Andrew then became a Crown Law counsel in the treaty issues and international law team in 1993. He represented the Crown in public law litigation in the courts at all levels. He was also a member of the Crown negotiating team for Treaty of Waitangi settlements in relation to Ngāi Tahu and Tūrangi. He eventually led the treaty team.

In 1999, he joined the independent bar. He specialised in public law and civil litigation, including litigation over treaty settlements and trust and equity litigation in the specialist Maori Land Courts. Andrew also has significant adjudication experience as a member of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority and the Weathertight Homes Tribunal, Parker said.