Printed from https://fyi.org.nz./request/7898-wendy-ball-and-dr-karen-zelas on December 18, 2024 18:53

Wendy Ball and Dr Karen Zelas

Ross Francis made this Official Information request to Law Commission

Response to this request is long overdue. By law Law Commission should have responded by now (details and exceptions). The requester can complain to the Ombudsman.

From: Ross Francis

Dear Law Commission,

I am requesting information for research puproses.

Please supply me with all easily accessible information that you hold in regards to submissions or comments by Wendy Ball and Dr Karen Zelas.Please advise if and how you would like me to refine my request.

Yours faithfully,

Ross Francis

Link to this

From: Louise Norton
Law Commission

Tēnā koe

 

Thank you for your request for official information which we received on
23 May 2018.  You requested the following information from the Law
Commission:

 

·         All easily accessible information that you hold in regards to
submissions or comments by Wendy Ball and Dr Karen Zelas

 

We have interpreted “easily accessible” to mean electronic documents and
have excluded hard copy documents that would need to be recalled from
storage and searched manually. As explained in response to your previous
discontinued request of 26 March 2018, the official records of the time of
the project were hard copy. Any electronic files we have for the time are
only those created by us and do not include those received from others
outside of the Commission. Such documents will only be in hard copy.

 

We have assumed based on your previous discontinued request that you would
like these in the context of consultation on our Evidence Law projects
during the 1990s, and specifically NZLC PP26 The Evidence of Children and
Other Vulnerable Witnesses. Please let us know if this is not correct and
further clarify your request to help us identify relevant documents.

 

We have only been able to identify two such documents (attached) relating
to Dr Zelas and none relating to Wendy Ball. These are:

·         A filenote of a meeting with Dr Zelas regarding section 23G of
the Evidence Act 1908 (expert witnesses in cases involving child
complainants)

·         A document aggregating the comments of consultants on s 23G,
including Dr Zelas.

In addition to the hard copy files still held by the Law Commission, there
are several that were in the past transferred from the Law Commission to
Archives NZ that may hold documents related to your search. These are:

Evidence project consultation files held at Archives NZ:

 

ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/26 3/1 1 Consultation - Correspondence [1]ORDER 1990 1990 Wgtn
for Discussion DETAILS »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/26 3/1 2 Consultation - [2]ORDER DETAILS 1990 1991 Wgtn
Correspondence »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/26 3/1 3 Consultation - [3]ORDER DETAILS 1992 1992 Wgtn
Correspondence »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/1 4 Consultation - [4]ORDER DETAILS 1993 1993 Wgtn
Correspondence »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/1 5 Consultation - [5]ORDER DETAILS 1993 1995 Wgtn
Correspondence »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/2 1 Consultation - [6]ORDER DETAILS 1991 1992 Wgtn
Submissions »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/2 2 Consultation - [7]ORDER DETAILS 1992 1995 Wgtn
Submissions »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/3 1 Consultation - [8]ORDER DETAILS 1990 1991 Wgtn
Seminars »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/27 3/3 2 Consultation - [9]ORDER DETAILS 1992 1992 Wgtn
Seminars »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects Evidence - Conduct,
W5271/24 13/3 1 Character and Credibility [10]ORDER 1991 1994 Wgtn
Evidence - Consultation DETAILS »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects - Evidence -
W5271/24 14/3 1 Privilege - [11]ORDER DETAILS 1989 1993 Wgtn
Consultation »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects - Evidence -
W5271/24 14/3 2 Privilege - [12]ORDER DETAILS 1993 1993 Wgtn
Consultation »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/25 15/3 1 Confessions and Right to [13]ORDER 1991 1992 Wgtn
Silence Consultation DETAILS »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/25 15/3 2 Criminal Evidence - [14]ORDER 1992 1993 Wgtn
Consultation Sundry DETAILS »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/25 15/3/2 1 Consultation - [15]ORDER DETAILS 1992 1992 Wgtn
Submissions »
ABQC 7958 PRO EVI Projects / Evidence -
W5271/26 15/3/2 2 Consultation - [16]ORDER DETAILS 1992 1993 Wgtn
Submissions »

You are able to arrange to view these with [17]Archives NZ.

Yours sincerely

 

Louise Norton | Information Adviser

Phone 04 914 4843

Email [email address] OR [email address]

Level 9, Solnet House, 70 The Terrace | PO Box 2590 | Wellington

lawcom.govt.nz

Hours: Mon/Tue 9.30am – 5pm, Wed/Thu 9.30am – 2pm

 

 

show quoted sections

Link to this

Ross Francis left an annotation ()

Dear Louise,

You say you have interpreted “easily accessible” to mean electronic documents and have excluded hard copy documents. I'm not sure why that is the case. The Public Records Act states that all records - not just electronic records - must be accessible. If the Law Commission's records are not easily accessible, it would be prudent to ensure that they are. I would like all documents you hold in respect of Wendy Ball and Dr Karen Zelas. I am happy to refine this request if necessary.

You have not attached the documents that you say are attached.

Link to this

Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Law Commission only: