He presided over the longest trial in the nation’s legal history
Helen Winkelmann, New Zealand’s chief justice, expressed sympathies to the loved ones of Robert Philip Smellie, a former High Court judge who died on 23 December 2025, survived by his three sons and four grandchildren.
“His was a life of service to the legal profession, to the judiciary, to his church and to the community,” Winkelmann said in a media statement. “On behalf of the New Zealand judiciary, I acknowledge and pay tribute to the importance of that service.”
The chief justice’s media statement provided more information regarding the late former judge’s judicial achievements and other professional activities.
Born in Dunedin in 1930, Smellie studied at Otago Boys’ High School. He later earned an LLB from the University of Auckland and commenced his legal career as a barrister and solicitor in 1957.
He worked as a partner at Grierson, Jackson and Partners, which later became Simpson Grierson. He then joined the independent bar in 1976 and published Building Contracts and Practice in New Zealand, a text on construction law, in 1979.
Smellie chaired the Equal Opportunities Tribunal, later called the Human Rights Review Tribunal, from 1982–85.
In 1985, he joined the High Court bench, sitting in Auckland. He served as an executive judge focusing on Commercial List cases and as a member of the judicial working group on gender equity.
Smellie presided over litigation arising from the New Zealand government’s sale of its shareholding in New Zealand Steel. Lasting from 21 November 1994 to 21 December 1995, this was the lengthiest trial in the nation’s legal history, given the complex factual and legal issues.
On 12 July 1996, in the Auckland High Court, Smellie delivered judgment in Equiticorp Industries Group Limited (In Statutory Management) v The Crown, which directed the Crown to pay significant damages.
Smellie retired as a full-time judge in 1998 but continued serving as an acting judge of the High Court until 2002. After moving on from New Zealand’s judiciary, he kept up his judicial service in the Pacific, sitting as a Fiji Court of Appeal judge from about 2001 until September 2007.
Smellie served as a council member of the Auckland District Law Society, chair of the legislation committees of both the Auckland and New Zealand law societies, and a contributor to the New Zealand Law Society’s disciplinary committee.
He received the Bruce Elliott Prize for service to the public and the law in 1973, earned a Queen's Counsel (now King’s Counsel) designation in 1979, and became a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1998 for his services as a High Court judge.
Smellie accepted an appointment in 2000 to lead a complaints review office to investigate serious grievances against the Auckland City Council.
