Principal Family Court Judge

Judge Peter Boshier is the Principal Family Court Judge of New Zealand and was appointed to that role on 12 March 2004. It is an appointment for a term of 8 years.

Judge Boshier was born in Gisborne in 1952 and was educated at Gisborne Boys High School and then Victoria University of Wellington where he graduated in 1975 with the degree of LLB (Hons). He joined the Wellington firm of Macalister Mazengarb Parkin & Rose as a law clerk in 1973, became a partner of that firm in 1979 and practised in the areas of criminal, civil, tribunal and family law. He was a council member of the Wellington District Law Society in 1987 and was appointed as a District Court Judge to Auckland in April 1988. His designated areas of specialisation were Family and Youth Courts.

In 1993, Judge Boshier completed a Committee Report reviewing the Family Court. A number of changes to the practice were suggested and have been implemented, over the years. Some of that report’s recommendations feature in the Law Commission’s “Dispute Resolution in the Family Court” Report No. 82 published in March 2003.

Judge Boshier has long had an interest in Pacific youth justice and in child offenders. In 1999, he wrote, at the request of the then Principal Youth Court Judge David Carruthers, a Child Offenders Manual, giving a practical guide to successful intervention with child offenders. Since then, he has taught extensively in this area of the law.

In July 2002, he was seconded by the New Zealand Government to join the Pacific Judicial Education Programme based in Suva and teaching law to judicial officers of the Pacific. In 2003 he attended the University of the South Pacific and completed a graduate certificate in tertiary teaching.

Upon his return to New Zealand he was appointed to his present position and has a commitment to working with Government to continue to reform the Family Court so that its processes provide efficient and economic access to justice.

In October 2006 Judge Boshier was charitably nominated by the New Zealand Listener, as being in the top fifty outstanding New Zealanders.