Deborah Coddington: Courts need creche course to relieve kids' boredom

Time will tell what fate awaits Rod Petricevic. Photo / Kenny Rodger

In Auckland's District Court last week I listened to depositions evidence against Bridgecorp Finance directors facing charges brought by the Securities Commission.

The tiny room was filled mostly with men in suits, one of whom I recognised - Rod Petricevic. Not that he knew me.

Last time our paths crossed I was just his waitress when he was dining in the summer holidays. It was 1986, and he was so wealthy he could afford to be super-rude.

I didn't remind the now bankrupt Petricevic of this. He looks shrunken, miserable, and I know how that feels. But I did recall the saying, "be nice to those you encounter on the way up, because you'll meet them again on the way down".

In all probability, the Bridgecorp directors will go to trial, and time will tell who of the five will or will not be imprisoned.

Along the corridors these guys may have felt a frisson of fear as they brushed against potential cellmates. The Auckland District Court complex is a rabbit warren at the best of times. Right now, undergoing alterations, it's a nightmare to navigate.

And yet again, after years as a journalist covering stories involving fronting up to court, I wondered why our courts don't have childcare facilities.

Dozens of hapless citizens are summoned at 10am, only to sit and wait for hours, ducking out for a smoke or feed the parking meter, and they are inevitably surrounded by bored, wailing children.

I can hear the victims' lobby groups complaining already. The justice system is already slanted in favour of the crims, they reckon, why should their kids get taxpayer-funded childcare on top of everything else? Well, why not? Why should we punish the children?

Courts are no place for little people, and I'm sure if mum or dad could find a babysitter, they would. At the end of a long, stressful day, inevitably it's the kids who suffer.

In her review of legal aid last year, Dame Margaret Bazley recommended temporary childcare, with an educational focus, should be available to court users.

And what about childcare for jurors' children? In Denver, Colorado, the Mile High Montessori Early Learning Centre has operated a creche at the county court for a decade because kids were not only disruptive but "more importantly, it was not a place for children".

In the United States, the idea of court care began in New York then spread to California and Massachusetts.

This idea stayed with me when Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias, presided over the first ceremonial sitting at the new Supreme Court complex in Wellington three days later. And what a breathtakingly beautiful building this is.

I love the exterior, with its bronze screen inspired by pohutukawa and rata.

Inside, the copper-panelled dome lined with silver beech mimics a kauri cone, and anyone can step through the front door and view all this - a clever Warren & Mahoney tribute to open justice.

I know last year I scolded at the $80 million we spent, but now I'm pleased we've restored the old High Court building. I know I've lamented our abolishing the right to appeal to the Privy Council, but now I admit I've lost that battle. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds".

It was a good ceremony - neither stuffy nor pretentious. The Chief Justice does these things well. Successful women sprinkled the room - how different a setting, I thought, from the weary rooms of Auckland's District Court.

And as I listened to her speech, I recalled words Dame Sian delivered to an Australian women lawyers' conference in 2008.

Were you thinking about childcare for the impoverished who come before the courts, Chief Justice, when you said this? "No woman is an island. We should not expect to see wealthy and educated women fully accepted in the legal profession while the standing of women in the wider community languishes. If the positions we achieve do not lead to changes for better justice in our societies - for all women, for men as well as women, for children as well as adults, for all races - we will have failed."

Professional women demand rights for themselves in workplaces. Maybe women lawyers' associations could demand rights for their clients' babies in court.