Suspended lawyer James Gardner-Hopkins’ inclusion on a resource consent expert panel might have shaken public confidence in the panel’s work, the Court of Appeal says.

The court has upheld a decision to exclude him from an expert panel to decide a fast-track planning application – after he was exposed during the peak of #metoo movement.

Gardner-Hopkins is serving a three-year suspension from practising as a lawyer, which the professional disciplinary body imposed for misconduct involving inappropriate drunken touching of five summer interns when he was a partner at the prominent law firm Russell McVeagh in Wellington in 2015.

The suspension ends in February 2025.

Gardner-Hopkins describes himself on social media as an experienced consultant and adviser. His previous area of expertise was environment and planning law and he led the Māori legal group at Russell McVeagh. He is of Niuean descent.

Ngāti Paoa Trust Board nominated Gardner-Hopkins, a longstanding adviser, to be a member of the Botanic Riverhead Panel, and potentially wanted him on other such panels. The board acknowledged some members of the public might be aghast at his appointment, the Court of Appeal said.

The court said there were to be 17 other panels in Auckland and more than 140 around the country as a fast-track process, bypassing usual planning processes, to promote post-pandemic economic and social recovery.

Panel conveners – current or former Environment Court judges – appointed the members.

However, panel convener Judge Laurie Newhook refused to appoint Gardner-Hopkins, saying he could take into account matters including character and integrity, and the circumstances of Gardner-Hopkins’ suspension.

The trust board took a case to the High Court over the refusal to appoint Gardner-Hopkins.

In late May, the judge agreed with the trust board and said the decision not to appoint Gardner-Hopkins was unlawful.

But Judge Newhook appealed against that decision and on Friday the Court of Appeal decided in his favour.

The court said the public needed a high level of confidence in the work of the panels which had a “quasi-judicial” function and the members should be fit for office.

“The public might reasonably wonder why a person who has yet to complete a period of suspension to re-establish his fitness to practise law is a suitable appointee to a quasi-judicial body which performs important public functions and needs a high degree of public confidence,” the Court of Appeal said.

It was reasonable to think the risk of controversy was high having regard to the seriousness of the misconduct and the publicity the disciplinary proceeding attracted, it said.

It did not follow that Gardner-Hopkins was being punished again for his past misconduct, it said.

Ngāti Paoa Trust Board was ordered to pay legal costs for the appeal, in a sum yet to be fixed.

The panel was to consider resource consent for a retirement village, childcare centre and cafe at Riverhead, north-west Auckland, an area to which Ngāti Paoa has a strong connection.

Fourteen iwi authorities were asked if they wanted to nominate a member of the panel, but only Ngāti Paoa did.

The panel went ahead with another member.

In a different case another Māori trust board had wanted Gardner-Hopkins to represent it in the Environment Court as a “general representative”, but the court refused to allow it.