One man’s contribution to more than 50 years of fighting institutional racism in the judicial system have been recognised with a Queen’s Birthday honour.
Dr Oliver Sutherland worked in and alongside groups like the Nelson Māori Committee, the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination, and others from the 1970s onwards, fighting to bring about a fairer justice system for Māori and Pasifika people.
Sutherland’s contributions to law and the Māori and Pacific communities were recognised this weekend with an induction into the New Zealand Order of Merit.
We first submitted to the Ministry of Justice in 1972, exactly 50 years ago this year, it was Roy Jack at the time, and he said ‘no, we have the best of British justice for all’, and that said it all really because that was the problem that we were complaining about: we had a British system.