Attorney-General ignores survivors’ calls and backs Solicitor-General

Attorney-General Judith Collins says she continues to have confidence in Solicitor-General Una Jagose, despite calls for the head of Crown Law to step down for how she has handled the claims of state abuse survivors.

Key survivor advocates have called for Jagose to be removed from her position as Solicitor-General.

They say Jagose is conflicted by years of ‘aggressively’ throwing everything at legal challenges to silence them, and neither survivors nor the public can have confidence in her ability to act with the integrity and transparency required of the country’s top legal offer, given her track record.

Jagose has not only led Crown Law for the past eight years but was closely involved in major historical cases in which the state’s legal tactics, withholding of evidence from police and survivors’ lawyers and attitudes towards survivors were found wanting by the Royal Commission into abuse in care.

“The Solicitor-General must stand down. She has no right to be in this position that is so influential; so powerful,” Lake Alice survivor Leoni McInroe told Newsroom.

“She has failed repeatedly, continuously. It’s not one mistake, she just continues to fail.

“She has made it very clear in all of their legal technicalities and assault on children that were abused – either in Lake Alice or in other situations – legally, she has fought vigorously and aggressively to have us go away,” McInroe said.

McInroe’s calls were backed by survivor and advocate Toni Jarvis, who wrote to Collins in August asking for Jagose’s removal. The man known publicly as Earl White has also called for Jagose to go after the way Crown Law fought his civil claim, which has since been used as a precedent for blocking other survivors accessing fair compensation.

On Wednesday, Collins told Newsroom she retained confidence in Jagose.

“She’s accepted that the way in which Crown Law – over the years – conducted its litigation has not necessarily been focused on victims,” Collins said.

Regardless, the Attorney-General said she had confidence in the Solicitor-General and said it was appropriate for Jagose to remain in the role as the Crown’s top legal adviser.

Last month, Collins wrote to survivor Toni Jarvis to tell him she would not be removing Jagose from her role, despite his requests for her to do so.

Jarvis said the Government’s response to the Royal Commission needed to be backed by actions, and proof that the Crown was changing the way it dealt with these cases.

Neither survivors, nor the general public, could have confidence that Jagose mainatined the integrity necessary for the role of Solicitor-General, he said.

“It’s about cleaning house. It’s time; it’s well overdue,” he said.

In a written response to questions, Jagose said she acknowledged the Royal Commission finding that “the Crown’s lawyers at times lost sight of the people behind the claims”. 

“I have made changes to the way Crown lawyers conduct claims brought by survivors,” she said.

“I am currently focused on supporting the Crown’s response to the Abuse Inquiry and, in particular, the Government apology to survivors of abuse in care to be delivered next month.” 

This comes as Collins arrives back in Wellington after time spent overseas in her other portfolios.

While she was away Jagose released the Crown’s updated prosecution guidelines, which asked judges and lawyers to “think carefully” about how Māori are impacted by the criminal justice system.

Following public and political backlash, including from the Attorney-General, Jagose has walked back the guidelines, saying she “missed the mark”. She was now reviewing the introductory remarks and the guidelines themselves to ensure they were clear and consistent.

Erica Stanford – the minister responsible for the Government’s response to the Royal Commission – said while she had no direct power or oversight of the Solicitor-General or Crown Law, she could understand why survivors felt this way.

“I think it’s clear from the Royal Commission and from the apology from the Solicitor-General that the way that survivors have been treated in the past has not been up to the standards they would set for themselves or expect for themselves, and they have made a number of changes,” she said.

“It’s very clear from the facts of the Royal Commission that Crown Law have not acted in a way that we would expect them to act; they’ve not been survivor-focused.”

Stanford said Jagose had admitted this during her conversations with the minister.

“They haven’t met their own expectations or the public’s expectations about how they should behave in these cases. And I think that’s very clear, and they’ve acknowledged that,” Stanford said.

However, survivors had every right to feel the way they did about Jagose, Crown Law, and the state more generally.

“Survivors are deeply distrustful of the state,” she said.

There were people who existed in the public service who had been in the public service for a long time, she said, adding that she did not have power or control over what happened to these people.

Stanford previously told Newsroom that while these decisions were up to the Public Service Commission – and now the recently bolstered Crown Response Office within the commission – she had made her expectations clear.

It was now incumbent on the Government to do everything it could to restore trust and confidence, she said.

“The direction of the Prime Minister is: ‘this happened, we believe you, we trust you, we will make this right as best we can’.”

Stanford said there was probably nothing the Government could do, or deliver, that would ever make things right, but there needed to be an acknowledgement that the state had done wrong by survivors.

Newsroom also asked Stanford about the potential conflict of Collins remaining in the position of Attorney-General – the country’s top legal officer – given her denial of torture before the UN in 2014.

Stanford said she had not had the chance to raise this issue with Collins since she arrived back from overseas earlier this week.

But she did say that all ministers involved in the Government’s response had been acting under the direction given by the Prime Minister, which is: “we need to do the right thing”.

When Newsroom put similar questions to the Prime Minister, he said he had not had a direct conversation with Collins about her comments to the UN in 2014, during her time as justice minister.

“What I’d just say to you is we’ve come out very clearly and said many government agencies managed the situation abysmally poorly, and we’ll have more to say about that on November 12.”

On November 12, the Government will offer those abused in state and faith-based care a formal apology.

Following a mihi whakatau, survivor contributions and apologies from some public sector chief executives (it is not known if Jagose will be among them), the Prime Minister will offer a national apology in the House in the late-morning.

There will be a survivor-led event at Pipitea Marae in Wellington, and there will be concurrent events for survivors held in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, which will have representatives from the Government and other political parties.

About 1200 survivors, support people and their guests are expected to attend the events.