Michael Myers

Who was Michael Myers?

Sir Michael Myers, GCMG, KC was the sixth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Zealand from 1929 to 1946 and served occasionally as Administrator of New Zealand from 1930 to 1941. He was the first person of Jewish descent to hold this position. He sat on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1936.

Born in Motueka, Myers was educated at Thorndon School and Wellington College, and gained his LL B from Canterbury College in 1897. Afterwards he was admitted to the Inner Temple.

Myers went to the 1945 San Francisco conference that produced the United Nations, and participated in the drafting of the constitution of the International Court of Justice. He resigned on 6 September 1945, but was reappointed for one year, and then resigned on 7 August 1946. Myers died in Wellington in 1950, aged 76. He had been made King's Counsel in 1922, KCMG in 1930, and GCMG in 1937.