Judge Kevin Phillips, 75, had his final sitting at the Dunedin District Court at the end of last year, following an 18-year career on the bench.
He told the Otago Daily Times in a no-holds-barred interview: "I’m a great believer in a restructuring of the court system."
"We seem to be in a system where the defendant’s rights have increased ... and the victim’s position has decreased," he said.
"Bringing the prison muster down isn’t the way to look at it.
"What can we do to protect our communities from violence?
"One way, particularly with domestic violence, is education.
"But I think there needs to be ... a much tougher attitude to it, to be honest."
One of his solutions was to create a body to specifically address how the court imposed penalties.
"Sentencing needs to be looked at closely and there needs to be ... a commission or authority, which considers issues of sentencing and makes binding recommendations, or laws, to judges dealing with them so we have some clarity and some consistency," he said.
"That type of sentencing commission idea has worked in other countries and would here."
District court judges are bound by the decisions of higher courts but Judge Phillips believed that approach was flawed.
"The problem I have with them is our High Court bench used to be populated by experienced people who had a background in serious criminal and civil litigation and they got appointed to the High Court as a direct result of that.
"I don’t think that’s happening any more.
"They’re highly intellectual, they’re highly intelligent but they haven’t got the practical bloody experience and they’re making calls about things really outside their levels of expertise," he said.
The judge also took aim at cultural reports — a document outlining a defendant’s background that often resulted in a deduction from their sentence — which had come under scrutiny in the leadup to last year’s election.
He said the best ones, containing information that could be corroborated, were helpful but they were rare.
"You get these people making enormous money out of writing a 10-15-page homily on what this person has told them," Judge Phillips said.
"90% are self-reported. What use is that to anybody? But the High Court says that’s OK."
While his concerns appeared to echo those of the National Party, he disagreed with plans to bring back the controversial three-strikes legislation.
"They haven’t got a clue. It isn’t a deterrent," he said.
The judge was also scathing of the increasing use of video-link technology to conduct hearings.
"Of course it saves money, but how can justice be seen to be done when a guy’s sitting in a bloody prison cell," he said.
"I hate it. It’s wrong."
And the judge said he was not swayed by the experience of receiving a "brown eye" from one inmate who shed his clothes to expose himself during one video appearance.
