Hon Dame Lowell Goddard QC

The Hon Dame Lowell Goddard is a Queen’s Counsel and former Judge of the High Court of New Zealand.

An Aucklander by birth and upbringing, she practised at the defence Bar in Auckland during her early years before relocating to Wellington where she became the Crown’s senior prosecutor. In 1992 she was appointed Deputy-Solicitor General for New Zealand and in 1995 appointed as a Judge of the High Court Bench.

Between 2007 and 2012 Dame Lowell chaired the Independent Police Conduct Authority and through her work at the Authority, was elected as an Expert Member of the United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture. She served in that role from 2010 until 2016, participating in a number of field missions to inspect conditions of detention in countries such as the Ukraine and Cambodia, and to provide educational support to the Governments of various State parties. During that period she also served as the Subcommittee’s focal point for the Asia-Pacific Region.

Dame Lowell is a recipient of the 1990 Commemoration medal and the 1993 New Zealand Women’s Suffrage Medal and in 2014 was honoured as a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She is a Distinguished Alumnus of Auckland University and an Honorary Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn Throughout her career Dame Lowell has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to social justice and welfare issues, particularly those concerning children and young persons. She is Patron of the Mistletoe Charitable Foundation, which provides funding for under privileged children to attend educational camps at Mistletoe Bay; and a Patron of the CatWalk Spinal Cord Injury Research Trust.