Another information request

From: Dr Joel Hayward

Address: XXXXXXXX

28 September 2003

To: Mr Alan Hayward

Registrar

University of Canterbury

Private Bag 4800

Christchurch

Dear Mr Hayward

In her 14 April 2000 letter to Mr Mike Regan, Editor of the New Zealand Jewish Chronicle, which appeared in the May 2000 issue of the Chronicle, and was also published as Appendix R of the Report by the Joel Hayward Working Party (University of Canterbury, December 2000), Dame Phyllis Guthardt, Chancellor, made this statement:

I intend to bring a recommendation to the next meeting of the University Council, to be held at the end of April, to set up a small Council working party to review the matters raised.

Later in the same letter Chancellor Dame Phyllis expressed confidence that the Council working party to be established would prove able to reach a satisfactory resolution to the entire matter.

I am therefore requesting, Sir, that you, or the current Chancellor or Vice Chancellor, will provide answers to these four questions:

Why was a working party made up of Council officers not formed to resolve all issues?

Why was an external working party established, contrary to the expressed intention of Chancellor Dame Phyllis?

Why was that working party given my name — that is, titled The Joel Hayward Working Party — when a vast multitude of other titles surely existed; e.g., the Holocaust Thesis Working Party.

Who gave the working party that title? By this, I mean, which individual(s) proposed, seconded and voted for this title, or, if it was not given through such a process, which individual devised that title?

Further, under the stipulated terms and requirements of the Official Information Act 1982 I hereby request copies of all records held by the University of Canterbury and/or any agents or representatives acting on behalf of the University of Canterbury relating to the Council sessions, both informal and formal, that Chancellor Dame Phyllis mentioned specifically in her aforementioned letter of 14 April 2000 to Mr Mike Regan.

My present intention, Mr Hayward, is assuredly not to burden the University of Canterbury’s administrative staff with needless tasks. My present goal is to make sense of the Joel Hayward Working Party’s proceedings, which, as I have publicly stated, were not in my view transparent, neutral, judicious and confined to the Party’s granted Terms of Reference. In short, I believe the University of Canterbury denied me natural justice and that the consequence of this has been devastating to me emotionally, professionally and financially. This belief, of course, warrants no response from the University of Canterbury at this stage.

I look forward to receiving all other requested information. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Joel Hayward

Alan Hayward

Registrar

University of Canterbury

Private Bag 4800

Christchurch

22 October 2003

Dr Joel Hayward

Address: XXXXXXXX

Dear Dr Hayward

Thank you for your further letter dated 28 September 2003 concerning the report of the Joel Hayward Working Party to the University of Canterbury Council in 2000.

The answers to your questions are as follows:

1. Council Working Parties are formed in accordance with Section 193 of the Education Act 1989:

"(2) Except where they are exercised by delegation under this Act, the following powers of an institution shall be exercised only by the institution's Council: …

(i) To establish boards and other bodies within the institution to give advice to the Council …

(3) The Council of an institution has power to appoint committees consisting of such persons, whether or not members of the Council, as the Council determines to exercise such powers as are delegated to them under section 222 of this Act and such powers as are conferred on them by statutes made by the Council, and to alter, discharge, and reconstitute committees so appointed."

2. That a Working Party consist[s] of non Council members, therefore, is quite consistent with the legislation. There is no conflict between Dame Phyllis' reported comment for the May 2000 issue of The NZ Jewish Chronicle, and the report of the Working Party to the Council in December.

3. & 4. The Working Party was simply titled the 'Joel Hayward Working Party' in view of the MA thesis which was under consideration. As you will be aware, the Council of the University established the Working Party to investigate the circumstances in which the degree of Masters of Arts (with First Class Honours) came to be awarded by the University in 1993 to Dr Joel Hayward. The titling of the Working Party followed from its terms of reference.

In answer to your request under the second last paragraph of your letter, I have summated an extract from the University Council meeting held on 26 April 2000 as follows:

"Consideration of the letter dated 4 April 2000 from the Chancellor to the President of the New Zealand Jewish Council was considered in private meeting.

The Council discussed what its response should be, and decided to approach Sir Ian Barker, former Chancellor of the University of Auckland, inviting him to chair a committee to be chosen in consultation with the Council, to investigate and to report on the matter of the 1993 MA Thesis of Dr Joel Hayward."

The Working Party report confirms that it was set up on 4 May 2000 with the terms of reference defined in the Report.

There is no record of any discussion at any informal meeting of the Council held before that 26 April 2000 meeting. Any initial discussions referred to by Dame Phyllis were just that — informal.

I cannot let pass your comment that you believe the University of Canterbury has denied you natural justice. The processes set up by the Council Working Party involved you fully in the deliberations.

Yours sincerely

Alan Hayward

Registrar

Dr Joel Hayward

Address: XXXXXXXX

Office of the Ombudsman

Level 14
70 The Terrace
PO Box 10152

Wellington

23 October 2003

Re. Investigation and Review of refusal byUniversity of Canterbury to make official information available to Dr Joel Hayward of Palmerston North

Dear Ombudsmen/women

I am regretfully, for the second time in as many months, hereby seeking an investigation and review — pursuant to section 28(3) of the Official Information Act 1982 — of the refusal by the University of Canterbury to make official information available to me, Dr Joel Hayward of Palmerston North, upon my request under the Act.

I enclose a copy of my original letter of request to Mr Alan Hayward, Registrar, University of Canterbury, dated 28 September 2003.

I enclose a copy of the reply letter from Mr Alan Hayward, Registrar, University of Canterbury, dated 22 October 2003.

Mr Hayward does not provide the materials I asked for, namely:

copies of all records held by the University of Canterbury and/or any agents or representatives acting on behalf of the University of Canterbury relating to the Council sessions, both informal and formal, that Chancellor Dame Phyllis mentioned specifically in her aforementioned letter of 14 April 2000 to Mr Mike Regan.

These Councils meetings were an informal session, undated in April 2000, and a formal session on 26 April 2000.

Mr Hayward has only summated an extract from one particular University Council meeting (of 26 April 2000). This is insufficient information for me to determine what transpired, relevant to my circumstances, at that University Council meeting.

Moreover, the University of Canterbury Chancellor, Dame Phyllis Guthardt, emailed The New Zealand Jewish Chronicle [which published her letter on page 10 of that newspaper’s May 2000 issue: The matter has been discussed at an informal meeting of the University Council.

Mr Hayward refuses to disclose any documentation relating to that Council meeting because, he writes, Any initial discussions referred to by Dame Phyllis were just that … informal.

I ask your office, Sir or Ma’am, to investigate Mr Hayward’s suggestion that, because an April 2000 meeting of the Council was informal, there are no records of that meeting, or that there are records but they cannot be disclosed because the meeting was not chaired according to formal procedures and that, consequently, the discussions and decisions do not constitute official information.

Given that important decisions appear to have been made at that informal meeting I ask please for your assistance.

Mr Hayward also did not provide me with answers to my questions:

• “Why was that working party given my name — that is, titled The Joel Hayward Working Party — when a vast multitude of other titles surely existed; e.g., the Holocaust Thesis Working Party.

• Who gave the working party that title? By this, I mean, which individual(s) proposed, seconded and voted for this title, or, if it was not given through such a process, which individual devised that title?

I wish to know when the un-named Working Party took my name, and on what authority, and with whose knowledge, it did so.

In my view, a person cannot have certainty that he or she has been treated with "due process" if he or she cannot see, and be given opportunities to understand, let alone contest, the process itself.

Unfortunately I still know remarkably little about the undisclosed proceedings of the so-called Joel Hayward Working Party, established by the University of Canterbury in May 2000 to investigate the highly publicised allegation of dishonesty (of which I was exonerated) made against me, Joel Hayward, by the New Zealand Jewish Council.

I sincerely believe that, as the Working Party bore my name (thus placing an additional and unnecessary and severe public focus upon me) and made my 1991 MA thesis its focus of investigation, I have a right to access and review this information, all the more so because the purported and widely publicised reason for the formation of the Working Party in the first place was "public accountability". (see http://www.newsroom.canterbury.ac.nz/stories/00122001.html).

The information I request will help me, as the "accused" in what I consider a pre-determined and unfair "trial" that was widely publicised as an independent investigation, to understand the unfortunate events to which I was obliged to submit.

The resulting fallout, I should note, has ruined my emotional health and ended my promising academic career. I was a Senior Lecturer at Massey University. I am now unemployed.

I am thus, sir or ma’am, applying to the Ombudsman pursuant to Section 289(3) of the Official Information Act 1982 for an investigation and review of Canterbury’s refusal to make documents on my own case available to me or to provide unveiled answers, or no answers, to my questions about my case.

Yours sincerely

Dr Joel Hayward