Pheroze Jagose has been appointed Judge in the New Zealand High Court. Jagose, who is a Parsi of Indian descent, will sit in Auckland.
The barrister in Wellington is a graduate from the University of Auckland. He had commenced his barrister practice in February 2016 and specialised in trade practices, security, public and administrative law. He has been at all levels New Zealand’s legal system, including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. Ranked as Band1 litigator in the recent Chambers Asia-Pacific ratings, Jagose was also involved in designing the New Zealand Law Society’s entry level civil litigation skills course. He was a litigation partner at Chapman Tripp for 21 years. His father is a Parsi Indian while his mother is an Irish.
The Swearing-in Ceremony
During the swearing-in ceremony, Jagose was praised for his humour, modesty, and his witty, grammatically perfect Twitter posts. A fellow lawyer even went on to say that since he had seen what the judge could do with 140 characters on Twitter, he was looking forward to concise judgement.
Jagose’s website contains legal commentaries on trending cases in New Zealand. He also wrote an article in The National Review about being a High Court Judge, in which he says the job requires someone to be a “cruel taskmaster”.
Brother of Solicitor-General Una Jagose
The newly-appointed judge is the brother of New Zealand’s Solicitor-General Una Jagose. Una Jagose was appointed at the post in February 2016. Her appointment was recommended by the States Services Commission as she “displayed sound legal judgment”. She had served New Zealand in a variety of roles — as Deputy Solicitor, Crown Legal Risk, as an acting head of Government Communications Security Bureau, and Chief Legal Advisor at Ministry of Fisheries. She holds an LLB from Otago University and an LLM (First Class Honours) from Victoria University of Wellington. She became a barrister and solicitor in July 1990.
About 4 per cent of New Zealand’s population is Indian, according to Census taken in 2015, and Indian New Zealanders are the fastest growing ethnic group in the Kiwi nation.