Dr Alan Reay, 82, lost a protracted fight to stop the hearing, culminating in a High Court bid. Photo: AFP / Marty Melville
A complaint against an engineer whose firm designed the CTV building that collapsed in the Christchurch earthquake will be before a disciplinary committee.
The six-storey building was destroyed in February 2011, killing 115 people.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment claimed Dr Alan Reay breached his professional obligations, based on Royal Commission findings that the design was seriously deficient.
An Engineering New Zealand committee will examine whether Reay failed to adequately supervise an inexperienced employee who designed the building, and if so, what action should be taken during a disciplinary hearing on 4 December in Christchurch.
The 82-year-old, who is retired, lost a protracted fight to stop the hearing, culminating in a High Court bid.
The 2012 Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission found engineer David Harding made fundamental errors in designing the CTV building back in the late 1980s and criticised Reay for handing sole responsibility for the design to the inexperienced employee.
The same year, the ministry's chief engineer and 54 family members made complaints about both men to an industry professional body, saying Reay knew Harding did not have the necessary experience to design this type of building and failed to adequately supervise him.
Reay was a member of the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand at the time, which is now known as Engineering New Zealand.
A statement released on behalf of Reay said he strongly denied the allegations at the centre of the complaint.
"The complaint focuses on employment procedures in the mid-1980s - some 40 years ago, a time when standard employment practices, including the degree of supervision of employed senior engineers, differed markedly from that of today. All other complaints against Dr Reay have been dismissed."
The statement said Reay believed, and had good reason to do so, that senior engineer Harding was sufficiently competent and supported to undertake the work.
Harding was not a junior engineer as many have portrayed, it said. He was a registered senior engineer with 13 years of post-graduation experience by 1986, including the design of multi-level buildings.
Reay's resignation from IPENZ (now known as Engineering NZ) and his rebuttal of the IPENZ disciplinary action was never intended as a disrespect to the families and friends of the CTV building victims, or to minimise their loss, it said. He was seeking a fair and professional process, which has been denied to him.
"The delays have been stressful for the CTV families, and for Dr Reay and his family. During this time he has repeatedly offered to make himself available to meet with the families, however all such offers have been refused by IPENZ.
"While recognising that the desire for accountability for the CTV building tragedy is entirely understandable, Dr Reay believes he has been an easy target to blame. Continuing to pursue him in this matter is simply 'a witch hunt' and serves no public interest."
The statement said Reay had been unwell for sometime and was medically unfit to attend the hearing.
Engineering New Zealand wanted to pursue a disciplinary hearing to decide whether or not there are grounds to disciplining Reay and how to do so, while the 82-year-old wanted the process to be abandoned because of how much time has passed and questions over which rule he was said to have broken.
Part of the reason it has taken so long to get to this point is that he resigned his membership in 2014, which resulted in the complaints being dismissed.
But the following year a rule change meant a disciplinary process could still go ahead, even if a member had resigned.
Since then, there have been years of litigation including appeals and High Court decisions about whether disciplinary action could be taken, as well as a separate police investigation which did not result in any criminal prosecution for the building's collapse.
It all came to a head in October, when a High Court judge ruled in favour of a disciplinary hearing.
The disciplinary committee hearing is essentially an inquiry, not a court hearing, so Engineering NZ can ask for people to appear but it cannot compel them.
The committee will decide whether there are indeed grounds for disciplining Reay, and if so, whether it can impose any penalties.
If it decides there are no grounds, the complaint must be dismissed.
At October's High Court hearing, his lawyer argued there was not an explicit requirement in the 1980s for him to supervise his employee, and said there was no need to protect the public because he had now retired.
But the victims' families have said they wanted people to learn from what went wrong so it did not happen again.
Families of the people who died in the CTV building said they had been waiting 12 years for accountability over the tragedy.
Maan Alkaisi lost his wife in the building collapse, and is a spokesperson for the CTV families behind the complaint.
He told the hearing via video that the families wanted to see justice served.
"The families have been waiting for accountability and the findings of a disciplinary process for 12 years. The waiting has prevented closure."
Years on, many families still struggled with the tragedy, Alkaisi said.
"Some victims were buried alive. Others were cut into pieces. In the case of some of our loved ones, no traces could be found, not even DNA that could identify them."
He said the tragedy demonstrated the importance of ensuring correct engineering and building practice was followed to protect lives.
The hearing is expected to run for at least two days.
