Wellington Queen’s Counsel Kenneth Johnston has been appointed an Associate Judge of the High Court.

Associate Judge Johnston graduated BA/LLB from Victoria University in 1979. He also holds a Graduate Diploma in Human Resources management from Victoria University, and an LLM(Dist) from the College of Law of England and Wales.

Associate Judge Johnston was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in February 1980. After periods at the Crown Law Office in Wellington a practising criminal law in London, he joined the Wellington office of Watts & Paterson, now part of MinterEllisonRuddWatts.

After 17 years at MinterEllisonRuddWatts Associate Judge Johnston joined the independent bar in September 1997. He was appointed Queen's Counsel in July 2016. He was chair of the New Zealand Teachers' Disciplinary Tribunal from 2005 to 2016 and a Deputy Chair of the Health Practitioners Disicplinary tribunal from mid-2014.

He will sit in Wellington and will be sworn in on Monday, 12 February at 3pm in the Old High Court, Wellington.