New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 - History

History

In 1985 a White Paper entitled "A Bill of Rights for New Zealand", was tabled in Parliament by the then Minister of Justice, Hon Geoffrey Palmer. The paper proposed a number of controversial features, which sparked widespread debate:

• The Bill of Rights was to become entrenched law so that it could not be amended or repealed without a 75% majority vote in the House of Representatives or a simple majority in a public referendum;
• The Bill of Rights was to therefore have status as supreme law, thereby causing some erosion to the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty;
• The Treaty of Waitangi was to be wholly incorporated within the Bill of Rights thus elevating the Treaty's status to that of supreme law;
• The Judiciary would have the power to invalidate any Act of Parliament, common law rule or official action which was contrary to the Bill of Rights.

The Bill then went to the Justice and Law Reform Select Committee, which recommended that New Zealand was "not yet ready" for a Bill of Rights in the form proposed by the White Paper. The Committee recommended that the Bill of Rights be introduced as an ordinary statute, which would not have the status of superior or entrenched law.

In its current form, the Bill of Rights is similar to the Canadian Bill of Rights, passed in 1960. The Act does create an atmosphere change in New Zealand law in that it provides judges the means to "interpret around" other acts to ensure enlarged liberty interests. The Bill of Rights has a liberty-maximising clause much like the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and this provides many opportunities for creative interpretation in favour of liberties and rights.