New Zealand Human Rights Act 1993

New Zealand Human Rights Act 1993

Status: Current legislation

The Human Rights Act 1993 is an Act of the Parliament of New Zealand which deals with discrimination. It was a consolidation and amendment of the Race Relations Act 1971 and the Human Rights Commission Act 1977. It passed into law 1 February 1994. The Act governs the work of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

It also outlawed discrimination on a wide variety of grounds, including:

1. Sex (including pregnancy and childbirth)
2. Marital status
3. Religious belief
4. Ethical belief
5. Colour
6. Race
7. Ethnic or national origins
8. Disability
9. Age
10. Political opinion
11. Employment status
12. Family status
13. Sexual orientation

There are a significant number of caveats, including "genuine occupational qualification," "domestic employment in a private household," "to preserve reasonable standards of privacy," "national security" and "organised religion."

New Zeland Human Rights Act of 1993 do not explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and the Human Rights Commission, supported by the gouvernment's legal office, has always accepted complaints of discrimination based on gender identity on the ground of sex. However, the desicion to interpret the prohibition of discrimination based on sex to also cover discrimination based on gender identity is easily reversed. But an important dimention of the exercise undertaken by the Commission in New Zealand was toward the empowerment of trans people, referencing the Yogyakarta Principles. In effect the Commission was responding to one of the Yogyakarta Principles' Additional Recommendations to national human rights institutions that integrate the promotion of human rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities into their work.