The New Zealand city of Lower Hutt has become the first outside of Auckland with a Pasifika resident district court judge. In New Zealand's 2013 census, 7 percent of the population identified themselves as Pasifika (indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands) and half of those identified as Samoan. Given that, the selection of Michael Alaifatu Mika, a Samoan New Zealander, is being hailed as the vanguard of diversity and representation. I'm particularly proud because he's bilingual, strongly bilingual. And so he'll bring a cultural lens. It's a hard task being a judge and so I think that cultural lens that he brings to the role is going to help him dispense with some complex and challenging issues that will come to his court, said Aupito William Sio, Minister for Courts and for Pacific Peoples.

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