Baroness Butler-Sloss quit as chairman of the inquiry after questions were raised about her brother sitting in the Cabinet in the 1980s.

Fiona Woolf later resigned over her links to former home secretary Leon Brittan

Goddard J was the judge entrusted with making recommendations on behalf
of Independent Police Complaints Authority investigations to the
Commissioner of Police until she returned to the High Court bench in 2012.

When deputy Solicitor General, Lowell Goddard refused to release evidence that former judge Michael Lance was guilty of perverting justice in a police prosecution of his son Simon’s business partner, claiming it was not in the public interest to allow the prosecution.  The police inspector at the time sought release of the file, which Goddard and John McGrath refused.  Judge Lance later became Goddard’s deputy judge at the IPCA – demonstrating a level of audacity which is rare, even by New Zealand standards.  Lance retired in disgrace shortly afterward when it was reported he was keying cars parked in front of his Takapuna apartment.  (Lance was prosecuted in a judge alone trial in 2010 and let off by Judge Kevin Phillips.  British tourists who witnessed the offending and returned to give evidence were deemed untrustworthy by the trial Judge).

Insiders concede the IPCA became a more opaque and political agency under Justice Goddard, with legal exemptions asserted to prevent disclosures of information under the Official Information Act and Privacy Act.  Much of the agency’s work is cloaked by tight secrecy.

Lawyers who appear before Justice Lowell Goddard generally have little regard for her as a judge who is willing to conform to law or to rule consistent with relevant facts.  They are far more impressed with her impeccable dress and make-up.

Goes to show the potential for criticism of the establishment when they have to go to the Commonwealth for a judge to chair it....