{"id":274196,"date":"2026-02-08T19:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274196\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T19:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:36:08","slug":"district-court-judge-ema-aitken-faces-judicial-conduct-panel-for-disrupting-nz-first-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/274196\/","title":{"rendered":"District Court Judge Ema Aitken faces Judicial Conduct Panel for disrupting NZ First event"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Judge<\/p>\n

\nJudge Ema Aitken is accused of shouting that NZ First leader Winston Peters was lying.
\nPhoto: RNZ Composite\n<\/p>\n

A District Court judge will have her actions scrutinised<\/a> by a Judicial Conduct Panel today, as she faces accusations of disrupting a New Zealand First event.<\/p>\n

Judge Ema Aitken will appear before the panel, after allegedly disrupting a function<\/a> at Auckland’s exclusive Northern Club in 2024.<\/p>\n

She is accused of shouting that NZ First leader Winston Peters was lying.<\/p>\n

Judge Aitken said she didn’t shout, did not recognise Peters’ voice<\/a> when she responded to remarks she overheard and did not know it was a political event.<\/p>\n

A judicial conduct panel will determine facts and write a report to the attorney-general, including whether the removal of the judge is justified.<\/p>\n

\"Ema<\/p>\n

\nJudge Aitken is being represented by David Jones KC.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Mark Papalii\n<\/p>\n

It is being led by retired Court of Appeal Judge Brendan Brown KC, and includes sitting Court of Appeal Judge Justice Jillian Mallon and former Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae.<\/p>\n

Judge Aitken is being represented by David Jones KC.<\/p>\n

Presenting the allegations of misconduct to the panel are special counsel Tim Stephens KC and Jonathan Orpin-Dowell.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge Ema Aitken is accused of shouting that NZ First leader Winston Peters was lying. Photo: RNZ Composite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-274196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}