20 Years On: Has The Supreme Court Delivered? – University of Auckland

Before the Supreme Court’s establishment in 2004, New Zealand’s highest court of appeal was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.

Sitting more than 18,000 kilometres away, it heard less than ten appeals annually. This arrangement was often criticised for being remote and disconnected from New Zealand’s unique legal and cultural context.

The Supreme Court was established to recognise New Zealand as an independent nation with a distinct identity, and to improve access to justice and address legal matters, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues, with a better understanding of the country’s past, present, and interconnected laws.

Two decades later, a new book, The Supreme Court: the second ten years, co-edited by University of Auckland law professors Michael Littlewood and Janet McLean, critically evaluates whether the Court has fulfilled these goals.

The book builds on a volume published ten years ago: ‘The Supreme Court: the first ten years’ but adopts a more critical lens.

“This book invites readers to engage with the Court’s performance and its role in shaping New Zealand’s legal landscape,” say McLean and Littlewood. “The contributors – a mix of practitioners and academics – see the Court as robust enough to withstand the critiques presented.”

Contributors include Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann, senior King’s Counsel Jack Hodder, and legal experts from Auckland Law School. Together, they examine the Court’s institutional development and its decisions in areas such as Māori legal issues, criminal law, public law, contract, and torts.

“It was valuable to have so many of our legal scholars contribute to this examination from different research angles and standpoints,” says McLean.

“They play an important constitutional role in scrutinising the decisions of the New Zealand courts.”

The book explores questions of statutory objectives and case selection, the Court’s relationship with other courts in Aotearoa New Zealand, and its approach to the delicate boundary between law and politics. It also investigates when the Court adopts “minimalist” or “maximalist” approaches and how it balances its incremental common law role with its broader influence on society.

In their opening chapter, the editors describe the Court’s establishment as an event of immense constitutional significance. However, they note that its early years were not without controversy.

“For its first few years, some judges worried the Court might not survive,” they write. “A centre-left government established it, and some on the political right favoured abolishing it and restoring appeals to the Privy Council.

“But the Court has survived, and calls for its abolition, if made at all, seem no longer to trouble the judges or anyone else.”