Legal System
The legal system takes the framework of a parliamentary representative democratic monarchy. In the absence of a single constitution, various legislative documents such as the Constitution Act 1986, Imperial Laws Application Act 1988 and New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 have been implemented to cover such areas. Human rights in New Zealand have never been protected by any single constitutional document or legislation, and no single institution has been primarily responsible for enforcement. Because New Zealand's human rights obligations are not entrenched and are simply part of common law, Parliament can simply ignore them if it chooses. The Human Rights Commission has identified this constitutional arrangement as an area in need of action to identify opportunities for giving greater effect to human rights protections.
The 2009 report by the U.S. Department of State noted that, "he law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected judicial independence in practice".
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words legal system, legal and/or system:
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“Hawkins: The will is not exactly in proper legal phraseology. Richard: No: my father died without the consolations of the law.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“All who wish to hand down to their children that happy republican system bequeathed to them by their revolutionary fathers, must now take their stand against this consolidating, corrupting money power, and put it down, or their children will become hewers of wood and drawers of water to this aristocratic ragocracy.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)