Sir David James Carruthers (born ) is a long-serving member of the New Zealand legal community. He worked as a lawyer in Wellington, Pahiatua and Palmerston North, before being appointed as a

Family Court Family courts were originally created to be a Court of Equity convened to decide matters and make orders in relation to family law, including custody of children, and could disregard certain legal requirements as long as the petitioner/plaintif ...

Judge in 1985. In 2001, Carruthers was appointed as Chief

District Court District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations, some call them "small case court" usually as the lowest level of the hierarchy. These courts generally work under a higher court which exercises control over the lower co ...

Judge, a position he held until 2005, when he was appointed as the chairman of the New Zealand Parole Board. In 2012, Carruthers joined the Independent Police Conduct Authority as its chairman. Since 2021 Carruthers has been the Independent Implementation Monitor to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the Victorian Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants.

Early life and family

Carruthers was born in 1940 or 1941, and raised in

Pahiatua Pahiatua () is a rural service town in the south-eastern North Island of New Zealand with a population of . It is between Masterton and Woodville, New Zealand, Woodville on New Zealand State Highway 2, State Highway 2 and along the Wairarapa Lin ...

, New Zealand.Speakers page
of the 10th World Conference of the International Ombudsman Institute He went on to study law, graduating LLB from

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

in 1962. He completed his

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

with honours two years later. Carruthers is married and has five children.

Career

Legal practice

Carruthers practised law in Wellington and Pahiatua for 20 years before moving to

Palmerston North Palmerston North (; , colloquially known as Palmerston or Palmy) is a city in the North Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Manawatū-Whanganui region. Located in the eastern Manawatū Plains, the city is near the north bank of the Manaw ...

Judiciary

In 1985, Carruthers was appointed as a judge in the Family Court in Wellington. Five years later he became a judge in the

Youth Court Juvenile court, also known as young offender's court or children's court, is a tribunal having special authority to pass judgements for crimes committed by children who have not attained the age of majority. In most modern legal systems, chi ...

, eventually being appointed as Principal Youth Court Judge. In 2000, Carruthers was asked to lead a Ministerial Taskforce on Youth Offending to come up with initiatives designed to reduce youth crime after

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

figures showed that "over the 1990s, offending by 10- to 16-year-olds increased by 55%". In 2001, Carruthers was appointed as Chief District Court Judge, a position he held until 2005. Carruthers also served as a judge on the High Court of

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

New Zealand Parole Board

Carruthers was appointed Chairman of the New Zealand Parole Board in 2005, a position he held until 2012. He was head of the Board when it made the decision to release Graeme Burton from prison in July 2006. Six months later, Burton shot and killed Karl Kuchenbecker in the hills of

Wainuiomata Wainuiomata () is a large Commuter town, dormitory suburb of Lower Hutt, in the Wellington#Wellington metropolitan area, Wellington metropolitan area in New Zealand. Its population was estimated as being as of with a density of 1,600 people ...

and injured a number of others.

Independent Police Conduct Authority

In April 2012, Parliament appointed Carruthers as the new chairman of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA).

Independent Implementation Monitor

On 1 March 2021 it was announced that Carruthers would be appointed to the role of Independent Implementation Monitor to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the Victorian Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants. Carruthers provided his first report to the

Attorney-General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general (: attorneys general) or attorney-general (AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enf ...

in September 2021. This report provided information to the Attorney-General for their first report to Parliament on the progress of implementation of the Royal Commission’s recommendations which was tabled in the

Victorian parliament The Parliament of Victoria is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Victoria that follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system. It consists of the King, represented by the governor of Victoria, the Legislative Assembly ...

on 30 November 2021.

Public speeches

Carruthers has given speeches at numerous conferences and seminars both in New Zealand and overseas. For many years he has pushed for a more humane approach to dealing with criminal offenders advocating, in particular, for increased use of restorative and therapeutic justice approaches. He has held a number of public and charitable offices and recommended greater focus on education, and interventions for youth and families rather than locking up more and more offenders. Speaking at a criminology conference in November 2012, Carruthers commented on the reduction in New Zealand's crime rate. He believes the drop may be due to efforts to reduce the number of teenagers being suspended or expelled from school.

Honours and awards

In 1990, Carruthers was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. In the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was appointed as a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the District Court. In

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, following the reinstatement of titular honours by the New Zealand government, Carruthers accepted re-designation as a

Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit The New Zealand Order of Merit () is an order of merit in the New Zealand royal honours system. It was established by royal warrant (document), royal warrant on 30 May 1996 by Elizabeth II, Monarchy of New Zealand, Queen of New Zealand, "for th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carruthers, David 1940s births Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Pahiatua Victoria University of Wellington alumni New Zealand judges on the courts of Vanuatu District Court of New Zealand judges 20th-century New Zealand lawyers Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit 21st-century New Zealand lawyers Family Court of New Zealand judges