Alarm over cultural beliefs affecting wedding fraud sentencing

File photo / Herald on Sunday

Justice campaigners are alarmed at cultural belief and tradition being part of a court's decision-making after a leading Maori spiritual figure escaped a fraud conviction.

The Rev Maurice Manawaroa Gray, 54, was found guilty of making a false declaration on a legal document after he claimed to have solemnised a wedding in 2006 that he was not at, making the ceremony a sham.

The unqualified man who conducted the ceremony on his behalf, funeral director Geoffrey Hall, 56, was also found guilty of fraud for his part in it.

However, at a sentencing in the Christchurch District Court on Tuesday - at which Judge Jane Farish allowed a Maori blessing to open the proceedings - Hall was fined and left with fraud convictions on his record, while Gray received no fine and was discharged without a conviction.

Among the issues Judge Farish took into account in reaching her decision was that Gray would face serious repercussions in the Maori community as an upoko - a spiritual and cultural repository of knowledge handpicked from birth. She also took into account the cultural belief within Maori of the shame of a conviction being carried by Gray's ancestors.

Garth McVicar, of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, said it was disturbing to see anyone guilty of fraud escape a conviction, but the issue of culture raised broader concerns.

"It is alarming. Because once we start making excuses for culture, where does it stop?" Mr McVicar said.

"Lawyers will milk it to the hilt ... We need to get rid of this whole excuse-driven mentality. If you have offended, you have offended, end of story, no matter what colour, race or religion you are."

Gray's lawyer, James Rapley, said the cultural impacts of a conviction were not the only consequences taken into account. Others included Gray's potential loss of livelihood.

Sentencing laws dictated that cultural background had to be taken into account and "we are living in a multi-cultural society", Mr Rapley said. "And in particular a society that recognises by legislation ... the special nature of Maori culture and Maoridom in particular. That's hardly unusual."

Otago University law professor Kevin Dawkins said the test for a discharge without conviction was whether the consequences of the conviction would be out of proportion with the gravity of the offending.

He said he was aware of cultural impacts being considered by the courts in at least one other case.