Law history and identity in New Zealand
New Zealand courts of today can enjoy to some extent "a distinct New Zealand legal identity". New Zealand laws, which have evolved over the years, can be truly distinguished by it's body of principles and practices reflecting its true outlook. New Zealand's early legal history was greatly influenced by laws established in other colonies ran by the British Empire and was in fact no more that the imitations of English statutes for the simple fact that it would be too difficult or too costly to draft up a bill on scratch. However, as stability was gradually established in institutions, cases and problems are arisen and where New Zealand is able to grow independently as a state, it forces the legislation to develop laws of its own to incorporate indigenous laws as well as to flourish laws of its own creation and be recognized with identity of its own. Before the arrival of European settlers, Maoris inhabited New Zealand, and was based largely on tribunal units. Since lifestyles was organized by tribal chiefs, New Zealanders had no conception of abstract justice nor of the rights of a community to interfere with its individual members for the general good; punishment of crime with them was simply compensation to the party injured w
Being a constitutional monarchy, Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of New Zealand and represented as a head of state. Through the Imperial Laws Application Act, Magna Carta, Treaty of Waitangi, Statute of Westminster and various other relevant statutes which have been administered throughout New Zealand's history due to pressures of the emergence of an independent states and local circumstances, it is suffice to conclude that New Zealand courts of today can enjoy "a distinct New Zealand legal identity" where laws of its own flourishes as a nation in this globalizing era. New Zealand, being an egalitarian society, has placed an emphasis for the need of change and has influenced on the character of legislation. The United Kingdom appointed governors to rule the country accountable to the Colonial Office in London. In the early years of settlement, New Zealand, as with other colonies, had very few competent legal personnel, especially those with the ability and experience to draft an original piece of statute. New Zealand adopted the Statute of Westminster (passed by British parliament in 1931) in 1947, which gave law to New Zealand Parliament the power to make laws for its own country. Then in 2003, the right to appeal from the New Zealand courts to the British Privy Council was abolished. This can often be seen as historical link to Britain. a distinct New Zealand identity gradually emerged. If New Zealand today was still reliant on British constitutional laws and practices, the difficulty of accessibility to cases will lead to unnecessary problems since it works on a common law basis and uses the doctrine of precedent. 'The courts that were established in New Zealand in the mid-19th century were fashioned on English models"4 The English common law had long held that where England, acquired a new colony by settlement, the colonists carried with them those elements of English law, statutory and common law that were applicable to the circumstances of the colony. In 1840, the British separated New Zealand from New South Wales and treated it as a colony of its own. Since the 1840s, the doctrine of judicial precedent, Stare Decisis6 has been fundamental to the New Zealand common law system.
Common topics in this essay:
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Stare Decisis6,
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House Representatives,
Statute Westminster,
United Kingdom,
,
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united kingdom,
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laws own incorporate,
elements english law,
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