“People are justice”: in conversation with Whaea Michelle Kidd QSM
By Hannah Ko
Perhaps my best years are gone…
But I wouldn’t want them back.
Not with the fire in me now.
Samuel Beckett
Michelle Kidd QSM advocates a therapeutic approach to justice. She was a leader in establishing restorative justice practices in New Zealand. She was also essential in setting up the Auckland and Manukau Family Violence Courts, the New Beginnings Court (Te Kooti o Timatanga hou) for homeless, and the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Courts. Equal Justice Project volunteer, Hannah Ko, sat down with Whaea Michelle to talk about what justice means to her.
You’ve seen—and facilitated—a lot of change in the NZ Criminal Justice system. What are some changes that have been significant to you?
We have a saying in te ao Māori: “he aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata.” What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people. Justice is people, people are justice. Without people, you will never find justice.
The introduction of therapeutic jurisprudence was so important to me. The defendant is central because it is a crime to harm someone. They must be made accountable. If you hurt someone, you’ve got to carry the shame. But usually, there is a reason behind any crime. Crime always has a context. Poverty is one of the driving forces of crime, addiction is one of the driving forces of crime. Many of our defendants are also victims. Many of our defendants who are violent, or who have addictions, or who have mental health issues—there’s often an interrelationship between that and the fact that they were beaten as children, or that they received sexual or emotional violence as children.
At the Family Violence Court, the defendant can get assistance for his anger, his drug addiction, or his alcoholism. This means that the whole family gets assistance. We all raise children, not just the small unit of family. That family is also connected to community, which is connected to me, because I live in the community. We are all human, and we are all interrelated because we are human.
Can you give me an example of an alternative way of facilitating justice?
I fought very hard to set up the Homeless Court. How do you fine someone who doesn’t have anything in the first place? So I got up one day, and I said to the Judge, “no point fining him, he’s got no money. I’ll hop in there with him, and we’ll do a waiata.” That was his fine, his koha. When women stand to give a waiata, they are supporting the person with whom they are standing. There’s other ways of doing justice that are far kinder than trying to hit people over the head, or lock them up, or fine them.
As lawyers, we aren’t equipped to handle the level of engagement that you have with people going through the criminal justice system. What you do requires a lot of empathy, a lot of interpersonal skills. I’m wondering how we could get to this point.
As lawyers, you have to learn to listen to your client. You should be assisting people, not trying to find a way to get them off, or to get them jailed. That’s not making any of us accountable for their actions. You have to see your client as a human being first, and not as a money-making exercise. Lawyers so often put things off, saying, “oh, we will go to another case review”. But the defendant is not learning anything while he’s waiting. The lawyer has all the control.
I’m hearing that we should learn to be more vulnerable with our clients. But vulnerability for me is not the same as vulnerability coming from someone going through the criminal justice system. How do we facilitate the place of participation and presence and trust that you describe?
You facilitate it by listening. You’re there to advise someone, but you’re also there to listen to the context of their lives. What has brought them to this position?
What do you think is important about education?
Education opens up theory. Education empowers you. It is empowering to put the theory of someone like Paulo Freire into our world. It makes you realize that “I don’t have to put up with this bullsh*t”. It’s changing our world from the ground up, from flax roots. Look at my hands. They’re not fancy hands. They’re worker’s hands. I never realised why I had been poor, with so many children. Education—it was like a great big world suddenly opened up for me, and I thought, “That’s why I’ve been mucked up all my life!”. I was so hungry for it, when I suddenly opened my eyes and my heart. I put my theory and the practical together, and I got my praxis.
How have you personally seen that praxis come to be, and how have tried to push that?
I see other people get educated. I met a homeless man, Mike, 22 years ago. He’s at university now, and he’s going to follow one of the men going through the criminal justice system as a kaiwhakatere (navigator). I’ve seen so many people get educated. I’ve got four at Auckland University, three at Waikato, two at AUT, one at Unitec. They are all learning and blossoming. It is just so uplifting, because it means that when I go, there are people to take my place, people to follow through with these flax roots.
What are they becoming?
Becoming? That doesn’t matter. Just go and get educated because the pathway will find you. We call it te ao marama, it’s called enlightenment. You know within yourself, but you’ve also got to have it in your wairua. Keep your spirit strong. And when you start to feel your spirit diminish a bit, go do something. Get some water and just throw it over your face, say a prayer to get rid of it. People need us. People want us to serve the people. That’s what we’re here for.
I’m not a judge, dear. I’m still at flax roots. Harakeke—that’s the most beautiful example of how we should be with one another: the elders protecting the young.
Whaea and Hannah spoke at length about anger. Michelle’s anger does not stagnate, it does not fester—instead, her anger grows from flax roots. Underlying this interview was an idea of “there, but for the grace of God, I go.” Whaea’s anger comes from love, and her love comes from loss. Love and loss together allow for a recognition of the interwoven cloth of human nature. We all raise the children. Potential and change comes from the people. What are Whaea’s flax roots? Education to find that which feels true, and action grounded in the practicalities of the world. Whaea’s anger drives change.
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Featured image source: Landcare Research