New Zealand Judges have ganged up to push Parliament into considering legislation which gives them greater privacy, stating criticism of judges - what they called "unwarranted and improper attack" - is increasing on internet sites; adding complaints to the Judicial Conduct Commissioner, while "appropriate in principle", are frequently being used "essentially to harass judges".

Eight judges, including the Chief Justice and Acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, expressly endorsed the submissions to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee. However, the cover letter asserts it has "the support of the judiciary".

Among the host of unsupported claims, the judges' submissions declare "the judicial complaints process... has been used largely by disgruntled litigants who are disappointed in the outcome of their cases."
In reaction to the broad-reaching and unsupported judges' submissions, kiwisfirst filed an Official Information Act request with the Judicial Conduct Commissioner seeking to know whether he was the source of their information or expressed similar views.

Commissioner David Gascoigne responded that he has not expressed any opinion the complaints process is being used to harass judges or anything similar. He began by stating he has "a statutory duty of confidentiality" which necessarily limits his disclosures. He finished by saying he could only speculate that the judges' submission to Parliament "may reflect the views of judges who feel a disproportionate amount of their time is taken up with responding to some of the requests from me for comment about some aspect of the complaints that have been made about them".

If the Commissioner's speculation is adopted, and one considers the statistics showing the Commissioner dismisses 85% of the complaints without seeking comment from the judge involved on the ground he considers s 16 of the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Panel Act 2004 prevents him from calling into question the judge's authority, then it becomes hard to believe New Zealand judges are so overburdened by this complaints process. Anything short of a judge dropping their knickers in court is deemed to be within their authority sufficient to preclude obtaining comment from them on a complaint before it is dismissed.

But then again, perhaps Parliament will not ask all these judges who signed the submission claims for the supporting evidence. In this sense, as in the New Zealand Courts, evidence may be a nuisance rather than a necessity