The Hon. Robert Smellie CNZM KC passed away on 23 December 2025. Tributes have been paid to him by the Chief Justice and by Business Desk (Thomas Manch, 24 December 2025). Both outline his distinguished career as a practicing lawyer, first as partner at Grierson Jackson and later as a Queen’s Counsel at the Independent Bar. They then traverse his Judicial career, initially as Chair of the Equal Opportunities Tribunal, then from 1985 as a High Court Judge followed after his retirement from that Bench as a member of the Fiji Court of Appeal. In 2007 after a military coup in Fiji he was among 6 expatriate Judges who resigned from that Court as a matter of principle.
He was active in supporting Law Society matters, serving on the Council of the Auckland District Law Society and chaired both the Auckland and New Zealand Law Society’s legislation committees. He was active in Anglican Church matters and drafted the first Constitution of the Province of the Anglican Church in Melanesia and served for many years as Chancellor of the Province assisting the Archbishop on issues of canon law. In 1973 he was awarded the Bruce Elliott Prize for service to the public and to the law.
Outside his work, he and his wife Lyndsay were enthusiastic sailors and Rob participated in annual Law Society regattas in his keel boat.
One of his more notable cases as a QC was a brief from the New Zealand Government to represent the Attorney General before the Privy Council in an appeal by the Royal Commissioner, former High Court Judge Peter Mahon, who had reported on the Erebus crash, against the Court of Appeal’s ruling that the Commissioner’s finding that Air New Zealand had presented “an orchestrated litany of lies” was unlawful. While in London, he was asked to interview Terry Clark, the convicted leader of the Mr Asia drug smuggling organization who was serving time in an English prison.
As a High Court Judge, Smellie is best known for having presided over the longest trial in New Zealand’s history – 198 days continuously and 204 days in total. This was the Equiticorp case which arose from the sale of New Zealand Steel by the Crown to Equiticorp on 19 October 1987 in return for cash and Equiticorp shares. Part of the deal was that the following March the shares would be bought back. The sharemarket crashed on 20 October 1987 and Equiticorp shares dropped in value from $3.52 to under $1.00. The buy back was effected by a sale to an Equiticorp subsidiary which was financed by Equiticorp in breach of a provision in the Companies Act. The effect of the buy back was to transfer the loss from the drop in value of the Equiticorp shares from the Crown to Equiticorp. The statutory managers of Equiticorp sued for the return of the moneys paid both for breach of the Companies Act and also alleging that the Crown had knowingly assisted in a breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of trust property. Justice Smellie upheld these claims and, with an award of interest, Judgment was entered for $328,393,641. An appeal was filed by the Crown which was the subject of a mediation that resulted in an ultimate payment of $267,500,000.
At the trial, the Crown was represented by Don Mathieson QC, Arthur Tompkins, Karen Clark and Rachel Sussock (the last 3 of whom went on to Judicial appointments). I led the Statutory Managers’ legal team which comprised as well Sian Elias QC, Stuart Grieve, Bill Manning, Helen Winkelmann, Anna-Lee Cook and Lisa Way (two of whom became Chief Justices of New Zealand). Peter Woodhouse (later Justice Woodhouse) and Andrea Challis represented Glenbrook Steel Holdings Ltd. in related proceedings against the Crown.
While Equiticorp was his most notable Judgment, he gave many others and had a reputation for being a sound and fair Judge. He was for a period the Chief Executive Judge of the Auckland High Court and increased the efficiency of that Court.
The obituary in Business Desk contained the headline: “Robert Smellie, an open-minded judge with a socialist heart.” It recorded that he was a committed Anglican and, after retirement, became one of the Labour Party’s largest donors ($115,000) as well as being a contributor to other causes, including the Auckland City Mission. When asked about his support of the Labour Party, Robert Smellie said that as a practising Anglican he saw socialism as being closer to the Gospel than free enterprise and referred to a statement by Michael Joseph Savage that Labour was Christianity in action.
JAMES FARMER KC
30 January 2026