The constitution of New Zealand consists of a collection of statutes (Acts of Parliament), Treaties, Orders in Council, letters patent, decisions of the Courts and unwritten constitutional conventions. As with the United Kingdom, there is no one supreme document; the New Zealand constitution is not codified or, with the exception of certain electoral law, formally entrenched.
New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government. This system is often known as the Westminster system, although that term is increasingly inapt given constitutional developments peculiar to New Zealand. The head of state and source of executive, judicial and legislative power in New Zealand is the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen is represented in the Realm of New Zealand by a Governor-General.
Read more about Constitution Of New Zealand: Elements of The Constitution, Reform, Sources of Constitutional Law
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“In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers’ document. It is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. Its prescriptions are clear and we know what they are ... but life is always your last and most authoritative critic.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
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