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Laurence Murray Greig (born 24 February 1929) is a New Zealand lawyer and jurist. He served as Chief Justice of the Cook Islands, a judge of the High Court of New Zealand, and as Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Greig was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at George Watson's College. He moved to Dunedin, New Zealand with his family as a teenager in 1946. He studied law at the University of Otago, then worked for Crown solicitors for five years before joining Bell Gully as a commercial lawyer. He was appointed as a judge of the High Court of New Zealand in 1979. He retired from the bench in May 1996.

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security

Greig was appointed the inaugural Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security upon retiring from the High Court in 1996. He was appointed for a further three-year term in 1999, and again in 2003. As Inspector-General, Greig investigated the actions of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service in burgling the home of anti-free-trade activist Aziz Choudry and found them to be "lawful, reasonable and justified". In 2003, while he was responsible for reviewing the security risk certificate against Algerian refugee Ahmed Zaoui he gave an interview to the New Zealand Listener in which he said that if it were up to him, Zaoui would be "outski" on the next plane and that "we don't want lots of people coming in on false passports thrown down the loo on the plane, saying, 'I'm a refugee, keep me here'." In March 2004 he resigned after the High Court found that he had displayed apparent bias and disqualified him from the Zaoui case. He was replaced as Inspector-General by Paul Neazor.

References

1. ^ New Zealand Who's who Aotearoa. Alister Taylor Publishers & New Zealand Who's Who Publications. 2001. p. 392.
2. ^ Wendy Murdoch (4 May 1996). "Time to move on from a life in law". Dominion-Post – via EBSCOHost.
3. Anthony Hubbard (1 December 1996). "The man to keep an eye on our spies". Sunday Star-Times. p. C5 – via EBSCOHost.
4. "APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSIONER OF SECURITY WARRANTS". New Zealand Government. 9 September 1999. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
5. "Sir John Jeffries & Hon Laurence Greig reappointed". Scoop. 11 March 2003. Retrieved 12 February 2021.
6. David Small and Aziz Choudry (13 June 2000). "Government Spy Agency Watchdog "complete waste of time and taxpayers' money" : Complainants call for abolition or radical overhaul". Peace Movement Aotearoa. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
7. Gordon Campbell (28 November 2003). "Watching the watchers". New Zealand Listener. Archived from the original on 21 April 2020. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
8. "Inspector-Gen. of Intelligence & Security resigns". Scoop. 31 March 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
9. Selwyn Manning (31 March 2004). "High Court Finds Greig Bias Against Zaoui Case". Scoop. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
10. "Justice Neazor appointed Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security". New Zealand Government. 27 April 2004. Retrieved 1 July 2020.

• High Court of New Zealand judges
• New Zealand judges on the courts of the Cook Islands
• Chief justices of the Cook Islands
• Lawyers from Edinburgh
• University of Otago alumni
• 1929 births
• Living people