Supreme Court of New Zealand - Background

Background

While the suggestion of ending appeals to the Privy Council had been around since the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, proposals to end appeals to the Privy Council began in the late 1970s, when a Royal Commission on the judiciary canvassed arguments for replacing the Privy Council. In the early 1980s, Minister of Justice Jim McLay suggested their abolition. Proposals for an indigenous final appellate court can be traced back to 1985. In 1996, Paul East, Attorney-General of the Bolger government, proposed to end the status of the Privy Council as the country's highest court of appeal. The proposal got as far as a Bill being introduced into Parliament. However, this Bill met with little support from within the National Party, and the Bill was not carried over by the next Parliament following the 1996 general election.

The policy was resurrected in 1999 by the Fifth Labour Government of 1999 – 2008. A discussion paper, Reshaping New Zealand's Appeal Structure attracted 70 submissions. A year later a Ministerial Action Group was formed to assist Ministers in designing the purpose, structure and make-up of a final court of appeal. The Group's report, Replacing the Privy Council: A New Supreme Court was published in April 2002, before the general election a few months later. Upon the re-election at the New Zealand general election, 2002, as part of the Labour Party's election manifesto, the Attorney-General, Labour's Margaret Wilson, introduced the Supreme Court Bill to create the Supreme Court and abolish appeals to the Privy Council on 9 December 2002. The Monarchist League of New Zealand began a campaign against the abolition of appeals, stating "Most lawyers are opposed to the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council, and doubtless will continue to do so until a more satisfactory justification is given for the abandonment of a tribunal which costs the New Zealand taxpayer nothing, and which gives us access to some of the finest legal minds in the common law world. Many Maori also see this proposal as a retrograde step, both by removing an impartial tribunal to which they have hitherto been able to appeal, and by cutting another link with the Crown." Margaret Wilson argued in favour of the Bill, stating "When reviewing the legal needs of the community appeals to the Privy Council seemed increasingly anomalous. It was anomalous because of the narrow range of cases that actually were appealed to the Privy Council. The Privy Council itself recognised that some cases it considered were better settled by a New Zealand court and referred back for decision. Its precedent value was therefore quite limited. Few cases got to the Privy Council because of the costs involved, and because in some areas, such as employment and environment law, the statutes barred such appeals."