Famed judge headed back to courtroom

Dame Sylvia Cartwright

There is something inherently spooky about the residence of the Governor-General in Wellington, on a hill above the capital, a monument to pomp and ritual.

Here, where paintings of monarchs stare from the walls and candles burn in crystal chandeliers, you almost expect to hear a cold whisper in your ear, a shivery hiss from ghosts in the halls.

Nevertheless you would not expect to find our Queen's representative, Dame Silvia Cartwright, tip-toeing down the long, windy road from the mansion one night, her neatly coiffed silver hair gleaming in the moonlight, as she sneaks off to scare the old policeman guarding the gate.

Dressed as Lucas, the ghost of a housemaid's spurned lover rumoured to haunt the house, she planned to moan "whooooo" through the windows at the old guard, famously frightened of the dark. Oh, what a thrill.

But such a caper never happened, no matter how much the Governor-General wanted it to. "Someone said, 'What if he has a heart attack?', because, you know, some of them aren't that young. So, I thought, 'Perhaps I'd better not'."

At this, Dame Silvia lets go a sinful smile but a giggle never quite escapes her lips as she assembles herself on a floral couch in the Green Sitting Room of Government House.

She has not often succumbed to displays of naughtiness over the later part of her 62 years. That's not because she is the Governor-General, or a Dame of the British Empire, or is about to leave her job at Government House to sit as a judge on an international war crimes tribunal.

It's because she was marked, years before, as someone who must always be on their best behaviour and who almost always is.

The Cartwright Inquiry into the treatment of cervical cancer at National Woman's hospital propelled her into the public spotlight 20 years ago. There she has remained - a figurehead for justice and respectability - ever since.

"It changed my life, no question about that, because I don't think that I would have been seen as a public figure had it not been for that, and that has led to its own great experiences. But it has quite often been a big responsibility as well and people expect you to be something that sometimes you don't feel you can be."

Such as? "Oh, much cleverer than you feel you are. Much wiser, and um, much better behaved." She does laugh at this point and her eyes twinkle, perhaps over the memory of some naughtiness that will remain a secret. "And that's something that I hadn't expected at all," she continues. "You can't take a pair of shoes back and say, 'There's something wrong with these; I want a new pair', without people noticing you. You have to behave, well, better."

Dame Silvia has invited us to the Green Sitting Room, where a painting by contemporary Kiwi artist Richard Killeen is her favourite thing in the otherwise traditional, floral decor.

She is giving one of her final interviews as Governor-General. Or to put it more accurately, she is enduring the experience. Interviews, she once said, are "torture". Especially ones that rave on about the difficulties she faced as one of only a handful of female law graduates in the 1960s and her time as a feminist trailblazer.

With the warning issued - "Don't get me wrong, I just think I've moved on a bit from what happened to me when I was 19" - she is welcoming and relaxed, and, in a carefully articulated way, quite funny.

After saying farewell to the Queen at a luncheon next month, and officially giving up her post on August 4, Dame Silvia will head to Cambodia to serve as one of only two international judges conducting trials under the Cambodian war crimes tribunal. The trials, of some of the leading figures accused of genocide and other crimes during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror, are expected to attract major international attention.

The job shows how highly regarded she is by the international judiciary and the United Nations, where she monitored compliance with the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

It also represents a return to the courtroom for our most famous judge and, with that, a return to the uglier side of life.

Her appointment as Governor-General in 2001 gave her a break from the horrors of the world of rapists, murderers and, in her new job, the alleged conductors of genocide.

But she insists it has not been easy. She has taken the role of Governor-General to a new level in international diplomacy, forging relationships and preparing the way for trade talks and deals. She laughs at the idea hers is a ceremonial role.

Dame Silvia grew up in Dunedin, one of six children of working-class parents, Mont and Eileen Poulter, who made hats, socks and scarves for a living. Committed to giving their children the education they were denied, the couple saw all six off to university - Silvia becoming one of only a few women to graduate with a law degree in the 1960s.

She went on to be appointed the country's first female chief judge of the district court then the first woman to be appointed a High Court judge. But it was in 1987, while working as a family court judge in Hawera, that she got the call that would change her life.

She was asked to lead an inquiry into "The Unfortunate Experiment" accusations in Metro magazine that National Women's hospital had withheld treatment from women in the early stages of cervical cancer.

Her report was a landmark in New Zealand medical history, recommending standards for cancer treatment and privacy, marking a turning point in medical ethics. It also helped turn Dame Silvia into an icon of the New Zealand feminist movement, a status I ask if she enjoys today.

"I wouldn't use the word 'enjoy' really," she says. "But when I look back on my life it had to be expected, really, because right from my days at secondary school I had an interest in issues affecting women. Although in those days you didn't call it feminism. It didn't have a word, it didn't have a syndrome or anything.

"In many ways my whole life prepared me for this role," she laughs, and concedes she is "something of a role model for younger women".

That doesn't mean she thinks we should thank her or the other trailblazers for women's rights. They did it for themselves. Anyway, she adds, it's worse for younger women these says.

"[They] have a much harder time than I ever had. The discrimination against me and my generation was so obvious that it was fun to fight it. For younger women it's much harder because it's more subtle. People have got the hang of it now and don't do the obvious things like 'No, we don't hire women' or 'Are you going to have a baby and leave us?' That sort of stuff. So I really believe it is harder. And also the legacy of the older women is [that the younger generation] can have careers but you also have families and so you have double the work, or at least one and a half times the work, that I ever had."

Her advice? Well, it's tricky. "I would never say give up having a family or give up having a career. You have to find a way of doing both because we need both."

Strangely, feminism, the topic I was wary of broaching with her, has left the Governor-General somewhat animated. But she gets tired of traversing the same old ground.

Even now, international journalists and women's groups still go gooey-eyed at the prospect of a country which has women holding the top jobs in the political-legal systems.

"But I always warn them. I say, 'Look, this is a snapshot of history. It's nothing extraordinary'. When I finish, I'm going to be replaced by a man. If the Prime Minister retired tomorrow, I don't know, but it's entirely possible it will be a male Prime Minister - same with the Chief Justice, I don't know. But I cannot ever again see four or five women at the head of the various important institutions in New Zealand, so don't think that somehow we've got a remarkable country where it's become a matriarchy. It hasn't at all."

While that might go some way to soothe the men's groups who berate her as a man-hater, Dame Silvia has, unwittingly, courted some controversy over her four-year tenure.

Last year she was accused of cultural imperialism for using her Waitangi Day speech to suggest women should be allowed to play more of a role in Maori ceremonies. Three years earlier she gave a passionate speech to Save the Children about the need for violence-free homes, speaking of "contradictions" in the law that meant it was against the law to slap an adult's face, but not to smack a child.

Her comments were seen as supporting a repeal of the law that allows parents to hit their children. But Dame Silvia sternly denies she was giving anything other than a legal opinion.

"I don't speak on politics in New Zealand. Even after I've finished as Governor-General, I won't.

"For years I've been a judge and judges don't comment because they're there to interpret and apply the law. It's part of my being, really. As Governor-General of course I don't, for similar reasons really. And, in the future, I can't escape my previous jobs and I won't. I won't comment."

So Dame Silvia will be on her best behaviour forever. Or maybe not.

A while ago a Wellington newspaper printed a photo of her smacking her cherished boston terrier Thelma on the bottom. She had been giving awards to guide dogs in the ballroom of Government House and Thelma, in a fit of jealousy, attacked the winner of the grand prize - the split-second admonishment captured by delighted photographers.

"It was not long after I had given that speech to Save the Children," Dame Silvia says, doubling over laughing with her media minder, who had failed to stop the offending whack.

There is, it seems, always a way for even the most well-behaved to break the rules. Even if you have to blame the dog.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Name: Dame Silvia Rose Cartwright.
Age: 62.
Job: Governor-General. Appointed judge to the Cambodian war crimes Tribunal. Former chair of National Women's cervical cancer inquiry and High Court judge.
Educated: Otago University.
Mentor: "I wouldn't describe one person as a mentor with the possible exception of Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who years ago appointed me to various roles and wouldn't take no for an answer."
Motto: "Mostly I have simply sought to survive rather than have a mantra that I subscribe to."
Favourite book: "Currently Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. But I always used to go back and reread Jane Austen when I was a bit down. Lately, however, I have been a bit put off. At least since Pride and Prejudice was filmed as a sort of bodice-ripper."