Eight complaints against judges were referred to the court's heads of benches by the Judicial Conduct Commissioner last year.
The independent Judicial Conduct Commissioner, who dealt with the complaint against Dunedin judge Stephen O'Driscoll earlier this year, was established in 2005 to ''enhance public confidence in, and protect the impartiality and integrity'' of the judicial system.
While complaints can be made about the conduct of a judge inside and outside court, commissioners can not challenge the ''legality or correctness'' of a judge's decision in any legal proceedings.
Commissioner Sir David Gascoigne said in his 2011-12 annual report there had been an 81% increase in complaints made to his office in that year and many were becoming increasingly complex and detailed.
Most of the complaints related to perceptions of rudeness, unfairness, bias, prejudice, corruption or inappropriate remarks and a failure to listen, he said.
Last year, 328 complaints had been made and there were 146 unfinalised complaints from the previous year. Of this total, 269 complaints were dismissed and 95 were judged to need no further action. None was referred to the Attorney-general.
Since 2007, 22 complaints had been referred to the head of a relevant bench. The majority were made against High Court judges, followed by District Court judges.
After preliminary investigations into complaints, the commissioner may dismiss the complaint, refer it to the head of the relevant bench or recommend the Attorney-general appoint a judicial conduct panel.
Complaints referred to the head of the relevant bench were dealt with through an internal complaints process, information on the commissioner's website said.
It was a voluntary process, because judges were independent and immune to discipline, to ensure justice was ''administered impartially''.
A spokesman for the commissioner's office said the commissioner and his staff were bound by confidentiality under the Judicial Conduct Commissioner and Judicial Conduct Panel Act 2004 and were not subject to the Official Information Act.
