An alleged ethics violation by the chair of Transparency International’s New Zealand chapter has boosted her fundraising success from government agencies. Transparency International New Zealand Chairperson Suzanne Snively was potted by TI NZ members two years ago for advertising she was head of a fictitious limited liability company when promoting her personal consultancy business on the business-networking site LinkedIn.

It was revealed around the same time that Ms Snively was separately Chairman of the Board of Vault Compliance Systems Limited, a New Zealand Limited company set up by perennial Christchurch hoaxer Victor Cattermole in 2013, with a Hong Kong address and phone number and a recently formed Cayman Island shell company as its 100% shareholder.

According to signed TI-NZ Board Minutes dated 10 March 2014, Suzanne Snively selected the Ethics Committee members to decide whether her conduct was unethical. She then recorded that “the police, Serious Fraud Office and the Judiciary” advised TI to “ignore” the complaints against her, two weeks later the three member panel determined the ethics complaints against Ms Snively held no merit.

This was a mere prelude to the rabbit hole the complainants fell into when next attempting to judicially review the Committee’s dismissal on grounds of procedural impropriety. Though Transparency International chapters are supposed to be “non-governmental organisations”, TI-NZ has received 90% of its funding from the New Zealand government. The NZ Office of the Auditor General is listed on TI-NZ’s website as its “partner”.

In its 2014 ‘National Integrity Systems Assessment’, TI-NZ rated the NZ Office of the Auditor General the societal “pillar” with the greatest integrity and most transparency in New Zealand. The Office of the Auditor General donated $40,000 and Ms Snively was paid a $50,000 stipend.

Apparently the finances needed a boost. When “the Judiciary” member Judge Mallon struck out the judicial review ahead of hearing on the ground TI-NZ is not “amenable” to judicial review and the subsequent appeal of this head-scratching ruling was deemed abandoned by the NZ Court of Appeal after the Appellants failed to pay $6,000 ‘security for costs’ into the Court, justice was done and dusted New Zealand-style.

That was until Court of Appeal Justice John Wild cottoned on to a fundraising opportunity for TI-NZ and a warning shot to any other whistleblowers in the wings. Three months after the appeal was deemed irrevocably abandoned (‘dead’ in layman’s parlance), Wild called for a hearing to “strike out the appeal”.

As the appeal was dead, the Appellants did not appear after reminding the Court of Appeal of this, however Justice Wild was undeterred, and joined with Justice Miller and Justice Cooper to order the Appellants to pay $4,000 to TINZ for a ‘hearing’ to strike out the already dead appeal.

A year earlier the Supreme Court ruled such a practice unlawful in Rabson v Chapman [2014] NZSC 90 but determined the resultant miscarriage of justice warranted recall by the Court of Appeal rather than the Supreme Court overturning it.

We are left to conclude that Justices Wild, Cooper and Miller do not read Supreme Court rulings.