The Office of Human Rights Proceedings
Te Tari Whakatau Take Tika Tangata
____________________________________________________________________

21 November 2024
  Level 4

59 High Street
Auckland 1010

PO Box 6751
Rodney Parsons
Victoria Street West

Auckland 1142
By email
Telephone: (09) 375-8623

Email: [Office of Human Rights Proceedings request email]

Tēnā koe Mr Parsons

Your request for information under the Official Information Act 1982

I refer to your request for information sent by email to the Office of Human Rights Proceedings
(Office) on 24 October 2024.  I have construed your request for information as a request under
the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA).  It is not explicitly clear from the relevant legislation
whether the Office is subject to the OIA.  However, it is my practice to apply the legislation as
I consider it appropriate that members of the public should have access to official information
held by this Office.

You have asked us to provide the fol owing information, copied verbatim:

Please  provide  response  times  of  OHRP  over  the  past  several  years,  written  criteria  for
acceptance/decline, and internal complaints management procedures.

Response times of OHRP over the past several years

I  interpret  your  reference  to  response  times  to  mean  the  length  of  time  it  has  taken  for
applicants to receive a decision on applications for legal representation. If this is incorrect,
please let me know and provide more detail as to what you mean by “response times”.

We do not maintain data on average response times, so I am unable to provide that
information to you as it does not exist.

However, there is information publicly available that may assist with your request. For
context, our standard process upon receiving an application is to make a personal information
request on behalf of the applicant to the Human Rights Commission regarding the complaint
relevant to the application. We then report annual y to the Minister of Justice on the
percentage of applications that are determined within four months of receiving that
information.

Accordingly, this information is made publicly available via  our Annual Reporting to the
Minister of Justice.  Our Annual Report is contained within a section of the Annual Report

2.                                                                                   Office of Human Rights Proceedings
___________________________________________________________________________

submitted by the Commission.  As such, I decline your request under section 18(d) of the OIA
in that the information is or soon will be publicly available.

Reporting periods run from 1 July to 30 June for each reporting year. Annual Reports are
accessible via this link:

https://tikatangata.org.nz/about-us/corporate-publications/annual-reports

Our Annual Report for the 2023/24 reporting year wil  be published soon, although I am not
sure exactly when.

Written criteria for acceptance/decline

Here, I understand you to be referring to the criteria guiding decision-making as to whether to
provide legal representation to take a case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Please see section 92 of the Human Rights Act 1993, available via this link:

https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0082/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM304916

Internal complaints management procedures

By “internal”, do you mean where staﬀ have a complaint about each other?  Please clarify if
this is the purpose of your question.

You have also asked for the following information, again copied verbatim:

Please outline the oversight and the process for raising concerns about OHRP personnel, up to
and including the director of OHRP, for: concerns about misconduct, maladministration or
corruption.

I interpret this question to mean where complaints are made by either applicants for
representation or by clients who are being represented by the Office. Please clarify if your
request is intended to be broader than that.

Complaints made by applicants about OHRP staff and/or the Director

If an applicant has a complaint about staﬀ, the complaint should be raised with the Director in
the ﬁrst instance.
If a complaint is made against the Director, then similarly the expectation is that the complaint
would be raised with the Director first, so an attempt can be made to address it.

3.                                                                                   Office of Human Rights Proceedings
___________________________________________________________________________

Regardless, there is no formal or legal requirement for an individual to complain to the
Director.  Ultimately, a member of the public has the right to complain to the Ombudsman
about the exercise of the Office’s statutory powers.
Complaints made by clients about OHRP staff and/or the Director
Where an application for legal representation has been accepted, terms of engagement are
provided to clients to consider before the solicitor-client relationship is established. The
Office’s standard terms include an alternative dispute resolution clause containing a
procedure for disputes, being the fol owing:
a.  Complaints about the Office’s services should be  referred  to the lawyer at the
Office who is managing the file in the first instance.

b.  If the client does not wish to refer the complaint to that person, or if the client is
not satisfied with that person’s response to the complaint, it may be referred to
the Director.
c.  If the complaint is about the Director, or the Office of Human Rights Proceedings
as a whole, then it may be referred to Royden Hindle, Barrister.
The above process is only applicable where the individual has agreed to the Office’s standard
terms of engagement.  Ultimately, clients have the ability to complain to the Law Society and
also to the Ombudsman.
As indicated, if there is anything in your request that I have misinterpreted, then please let me
know.
I note that, pursuant to the OIA, we were required to respond to you by Friday 22 November
2024.  Accordingly, our response is timely and within the prescribed period.  If  I  have
misinterpreted your question or you require further clarification, please let us know.

Final y, you have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
response.  Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.

Nāku, nā

Michael Timmins
Director of Human Rights Proceedings
Tumuaki Whakatau Take Tika Tangata

Document Outline