Lawyer earned respect for making every word count

Ron Gilbert was the first life member of the Criminal Bar Association and was appointed a judge in 1981. Photo / Supplied

Ron Gilbert, lawyer, district court judge. Died aged 84.

Ronald James Gilbert was known as an economical barrister who did not waste words with excessive questioning or long speeches to the jury.

He believed that a jury paid attention for only about 20 minutes, so those minutes had to count.

Judge John Cadenhead once added up the number of questions Mr Gilbert asked in cross-examination during two manslaughter trials that ran consecutively.

"They totalled 37. He addressed each jury for about seven minutes and obtained verdicts of not guilty in each case.

"The questions were penetrating and decisive to the final outcome, yet in both cases the accused complained to me about Ron Gilbert's lack of questioning. It took great courage and judgment to conduct cases that way."

"Stage management and the art of persuasion," was how Mr Gilbert described it.

When Mr Gilbert moved to Auckland to become a district court judge in 1981 he was one of the few defence lawyers to get a judicial appointment.

He presided over the Rainbow Warrior depositions, and at Hone Harawira's trial for disorderly offences following the 1981 Springbok Tour. Harawira called Archbishop Desmond Tutu as his first witness.

Judge Gilbert later recounted to a friend how the entire courtroom stood in silence as Archbishop Tutu swept into the room in full episcopal regalia, and began talking about apartheid.

"It was nothing to do with the trial, but I wasn't going to stop him."

Ron Gilbert was born in Dunedin in 1925. His father George taught him that if you did not argue, you would not learn and instilled in him a respect for correct speech and clarity of diction.

After leaving Otago Boys' High School, Mr Gilbert spent a year at Otago University before joining the Royal New Zealand Navy in 1942, at the age of 17, as a radar mechanic, a job that mainly required him to hit machinery with a spanner in order to fix it.

After the war, Judge Gilbert graduated with his law degree and joined law firm Clarry Stevens in Dunedin. The firm later became Gilbert, Francis, Jackson and Co.

He gave his energies to the emerging trade council and union movement of the 1950s and held a retainer for 25 unions.

The work mainly involved personal injury work during the time of developments such as the Bluff Harbour scheme, the Roxburgh Dam, and the Manapouri power scheme.

And while he worked hard, he also played hard, enjoying parties with a wide circle of friends. At one of these, he met his future wife, Vivienne Allan, whom he married in 1955.

Judge Gilbert retired from the New Zealand bench in 1992, and spent the next three years as the High Court Judge in the Cook Islands. He was the first life member of the Criminal Bar Association.

At home, Judge Gilbert enjoyed boating, fishing and hunting, but horse racing took precedence.

His 20 year involvement with the Otago racing fraternity included time as an owner, president of the Otago Racing Club, and an appointment to the TAB board.

The greatest compliment Judge Gilbert recalled from his legal career came from a meeting with an old Irish policeman who worked in the cells in the Dunedin prison.

"He went looking for an ex-client of mine who I had acquitted of killing his wife. I met [the cop] in the pub months later and he said, 'Hey Ron. Remember your client Johnny Xavier Rikki? He's changed his name, you know, Ron. I finally found him and he's changed his name to Johnny Xavier Gilbert."'

Ron Gilbert is survived by his wife, four daughters and two grandchildren.

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES. STAFF REPORTER