Laurence Murray Greig (born 24 February 1929) is a New Zealand lawyer and jurist. He served as Chief Justice of the Cook Islands, a judge of the

High Court of New Zealand The High Court of New Zealand () is the superior court of New Zealand. It has general jurisdiction and responsibility, under the Senior Courts Act 2016, as well as the High Court Rules 2016, for the administration of justice throughout New Zeala ...

, and as Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Greig was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, and was educated at George Watson's College. He moved to

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

with his family as a teenager in 1946. He studied law at the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

, then worked for Crown solicitors for five years before joining

Bell Gully Bell Gully is a major New Zealand law firm. Founded in 1840 it is one of New Zealand's largest law firms, and along with Chapman Tripp and Russell McVeagh it is considered to be one of the "big three". Bell Gully is a full-service law firm. ...

as a commercial lawyer. He was appointed as a judge of the

in 1979. He retired from the bench in May 1996.

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security

Greig was appointed the inaugural Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security upon retiring from the High Court in 1996. He was appointed for a further three-year term in 1999, and again in 2003. As Inspector-General, Greig investigated the actions of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service in burgling the home of anti-free-trade activist Aziz Choudry and found them to be "lawful, reasonable and justified". In 2003, while he was responsible for reviewing the security risk certificate against Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui he gave an interview to the ''New Zealand Listener'' in which he said that if it were up to him, Zaoui would be "outski" on the next plane and that "we don't want lots of people coming in on false passports thrown down the loo on the plane, saying, 'I'm a refugee, keep me here'." In March 2004 he resigned after the High Court found that he had displayed apparent bias and disqualified him from the Zaoui case. He was replaced as Inspector-General by Paul Neazor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greig, Laurie High Court of New Zealand judges New Zealand judges on the courts of the Cook Islands Chief justices of the Cook Islands Lawyers from Edinburgh University of Otago alumni 1929 births Living people