Thomas Eichelbaum

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Sir Thomas Eichelbaum (17 May 1931 – 31 October 2018) was a New Zealand jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of New Zealand from 1989 to 1999. He was born in Königsberg, Germany, and his family moved to Wellington in 1938 to escape persecution of Jews; he became a naturalised New Zealander in 1946. He studied at Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University College, earning an LLB in 1954. In 1956 he married Vida Beryl Franz, and they had three sons.

Eichelbaum became a Queen’s Counsel in 1978, served as President of the New Zealand Law Society from 1980 to 1982, and was a High Court judge from 1982. He was appointed Chief Justice in 1989 and retired in 1999. After leaving the bench, he led several major inquiries, including the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification (2000–2001) and investigations related to New Zealand’s loss of co-hosting rights for the 2003 Rugby World Cup, which led to resignations at the New Zealand Rugby Union. In 2001 he conducted a ministerial inquiry into the Peter Ellis case; his report was controversial, and in 2022 the Supreme Court quashed Ellis’s convictions.

Eichelbaum was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in February 1989 and was appointed to the Privy Council the same year. He also served as a non-permanent judge on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal and as a part-time justice of the Supreme Court of Fiji. He died in Wellington on 31 October 2018; his wife Vida had died in 2013.