The Law School - Te Kura Ture
Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/10765
The AUT Law School - Te Kura Ture's primary objective is to be a centre of excellence in law and humanities research in New Zealand. The school has particular research strength in: Corporate Governance, Insurance Law, Family Law, Employment Law, Sports Law, Wills and Estates, and Media Law.
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Item Why a Proposed Law to Criminalise Protests Near Homes Is Too Vague to Do Much Good(The Conversation, 2025-09-26) Gledhill, KrisItem No-Cause Evictions Have the Potential to Hurt Renters – With Little Gain for Good Landlords(The Conversation, 2024-06-24) Williamson, MyraItem The World Court Says Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Land Is Illegal: 4 Steps NZ Can Take Now(The Conversation, 2024-08-09) Williamson, MyraItem Critique of Hart’s Concept of Law in Samoa(Canterbury Law Review Trust, 2025-01-31) Fa’amatuainu, BridgetHart’s “Concept of Law” has gained widespread recognition in legal philosophy by proposing that a legal system is best understood as a combination of primary rules that impose obligations and secondary rules that grant the authority to create, modify, and interpret those primary rules. One aspect in Hart’s concept concerns the prelegal or primitive system, consisting of a society governed solely by primary rules of conduct without secondary rules. Thus, it proceeds to assert that such a system exists in a small, stable community bound by shared beliefs and kinship. This article illustrates that upon closer scrutiny within legally intricate and bijural contexts – such as the case of Samoa, where both primary and secondary rules co-exist – the argument proves to be fundamentally flawed. Moreover, this critique highlights the limitations in the standard application of Hart’s Concept of Law in other post-colonial contexts, including Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa. The article further argues that more critical and nuanced perspectives are needed to examine the legal reality of Hart’s theory in modern post- colonial contexts.Item Hearing All That Is Expressed: A Feminist Listening to the Silencing of Rape Complainants While Giving Evidence(SAGE Publications, 2025) Benton-Greig, PauletteIn this article, I bring a feminist ear to 30 Aotearoa/New Zealand rape trials to explore what they reveal about courtroom listening to adult female complainants. Listening for all complainant expression exposes myriad instantiations of complainants being silenced and misheard, and their words refused, dismissed and reframed. From these, I identify three practices of silencing that demonstrate not only a failure to hear and listen, but also the double abandonment of ‘ethical loneliness’ in which institutions that are meant to hear and care, force speech under the guise of listening, but then fail to respond and to protect. This feminist listening draws attention to the ethical and social dimensions of why many rape complainants experience giving evidence at trial as re-victimising. I argue that it suggests the potential benefits of in-court observation programmes and that the practices of rape trial questioning need close examination and reform.Item Seabed Mining Is Becoming an Environmental Flashpoint – New Zealand Will Have to Pick a Side Soon(The Conversation, 2025-06-16) Williamson, MyraItem Introduction to Volume 8(1)(International Contemporary Ethnography Across the Disciplines (CEAD), 2025-05-19) Fortin Cornejo, Moira; Thom, Katey; LisahunterItem Investment Art and the Operation of the Good Faith Buyer Defence for New Zealand(Otago Law Review, 2024-04-01) Thomas, RoderickItem Nuisance and the Private Space: Reflection on Fearn v The Tate Gallery(Université de Montréal, 2025-05-13) Beever, AllanDespite much criticism, Fearn v The Tate Gallery is one of the most important decisions of recent times. This is not because of the way in which it develops the doctrine of the law of private nuisance, but rather because it recognises an aspect of the right to property that is crucial to our liberty. This is the idea that property in a house, apartment or the like gives one a right to what we can call a private space. This article locates the recognition of this right in Fearn v The Tate Gallery and demonstrates why it is so important.Item Citizens and Mental Distress: Whānau/Citizen Stories of Police Engagement While Experiencing Mental Distress in Aotearoa New Zealand(Auckland University of Technology, 2024-05-27) Gordon, Sarah; Thom, Katey; Black, Stella; Hunter, Kiri; Hayward, Madeline; Kidd, J; Burnside, David; Hastings, Jessica; Butler, Kerri; Cooper, GrantItem Responding to People in Mental Distress: Exploring the Preventative Role of New Zealand Police in the Community(Auckland University of Technology, 2024-05-27) Thom, Katey; Gordon, Sarah; Black, Stella; Hunter, Kiri; Hayward, Madeline; Kidd, J; O'Brien, Anthony; McKenna, Brian; Vaka, SioneItem How Will You Hear My Voice? The Development of Indigenous-Centred Supported Decision-Making for Mental Health Service Users in Aotearoa New Zealand(Northumbria University Library, 2025-02-21) Lenagh-Glue, Jessie; Tamatea, Armon; O'Brien, Anthony; Glue, Paul; Potiki, Johnnie; Newton-Howes, Giles; Thom, Katey; Gledhill, Kris; Gordon, SarahThere is an urgent need in the delivery of mental health services to incorporate a more human-rights oriented approach, and promote supported decision-making, whereby individuals are supported their own mental health decisions based on their will and preferences. Aotearoa/New Zealand’s current Mental Health Act enables the use of compulsory treatment, which breaches both international obligations under the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), the covenant between Māori and the Crown which demands partnership and equity and the principle of self-determination for Māori. Mental Health Advance Preference Statements (MAPS) have been identified as a tool to promote supported decision-making and allow people a voice in their own care. This paper examines the foundations of a new project which is Māori-centred and co-produced with stakeholders, including tāngata whaiora who experience mental distress and those who work and research mental health services. The aim of this project is to create and implement culturally appropriate and locally relevant MAPS-type tools and then evaluate the impact of implementation. It is posited this will lead to improvements in health and equity, particularly for Māori.Item A Last Minute Amendment to NZ's Gang Legislation Risks Making a Bad Law Worse(The Conversation, 2024-09-06) Gledhill, KrisItem ‘Fortress New Zealand’: Examining Refugee Status Determination for 11,000 Asylum Claimants Through Integrated Data(Institute for Government and Policy Studies. Victoria University of Wellington., 2025-02-17) Fadgen, Tim; Malihi, Arezoo Zarintaj; Manning, Deborah; Mills, Harry; Marlowe, JayThis article presents a profile of Aotearoa New Zealand’s asylum claimants – people who have sought recognition as a refugee or protected person and then applied for a temporary visa. Sourcing data from New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we considered 11,091 refugee claimants between 1997 and 2022. The data suggests that the path to recognition can be long and circuitous, requiring multiple applications before status recognition. The data also reveals a wide health and mental health services uptake gap despite recent policy changes. When read together, we contend that this data supports the notion that everyday, discerning bordering exists in New Zealand through different forms of permeability and permanence based on gender and ethnicity. The article concludes with some insights for future policy directions.Item Australian churches collectively raise billions of dollars a year – why aren’t they taxed?(The Conversation, 2024-05-06) Gupta, Ranjana; Boccabella, DaleItem We Know Enough About Brain Development to Know Youth Offending Reforms Probably Won’t Work(The Conversation, 2024-11-26) Gledhill, KrisItem Effective Participation(LexisNexis New Zealand, 2024-06-01) Brookbanks, WarrenThe notion of "effective participation" is now firmly embedded in the discourse around unfitness to stand trial. It signifies what is essential in determining whether a person has the capacity to be an engaged participant in criminal proceedings. Although it is a concept which has assumed a high profile in the jurisprudence of unfitness to stand trial, both in New Zealand and other English common law jurisdictions, it is still poorly understood. In particular, it is still unclear how "effective participation" engages with statutory and other non-statutory criteria for determining unfitness to stand trial. Does effective participation, in some sense, represent a "flowering" of what is implied in fitness to plead, or does it stand as an independent construct superimposed on statutory.Item A Stress-Test for Democracy: Analysing the New Zealand Government’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic from a Constitutional Perspective(Elsevier BV, 2020-01-01) Williamson, MyraThis article explores the New Zealand Government’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic through a legal and constitutional lens. It adopts an essentially doctrinal analysis in describing the response but intertwines a comparative law thread, to draw selected comparisons with how other governments have responded. It offers some political, demographical and historical insights to provide background information for non-New Zealand readers. The article aims to provide a comprehensive view of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements and how they have impacted on the Government’s response to COVID-19 as well as a critical analysis of that response by assessing the effectiveness of various measures adopted by the New Zealand Government. The article consists of six sections. Section one provides an introduction to New Zealand’s constitutional framework including some demographic information for non-New Zealand readers. Section two describes the New Zealand Government’s overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Section three discusses the declaration of a national state of emergency. Section four examines the Parliamentary oversight mechanism known as the “Epidemic Response Committee”. Section five explores the role of the media and the importance of upholding the right to freedom of expression when responding to the pandemic. Finally, section six draws out some overall recommendations for New Zealand and other countries to consider when moving forward and preparing for the next pandemic.Item Resisting the Myth of Hobson’s Pledge and Crown Benevolence: Repairing the Record as Part of Weaving Together a Legal Future(Edinburgh University Press, 2024-09) Quince, KhyleeOn the 6 February 1840 at the first signings of the Tiriti o Waitangi between Māori and the British Crown, the pledge ‘he iwi tahi tātou’ ‘together we are a nation’ was attributed to Crown representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson. That was allegedly corrected at the time by prominent chief Hone Heke, who noted that a more appropriate phrasing was ‘he iwi kotahi tātou’ – or ‘together we are one nation’, which implies a very different bargain underpinned by pluralism. Whether this happened or not, it conveniently established a mythology of Crown/Māori relations that has permeated our national consciousness and legal orderings, with Hobson’s pledge held up as a unifying mantra for people from ‘two worlds with one law’. That mythology embedded the assumption of Crown benevolence toward Māori – that the colonisers brought law, order and civilisation where there had been none. This mythology denies the existence of Māori law and Māori agency in creating legal relationships with others, including early settlers. Ngāpuhi chief Patuone’s engagement in trade in the fledgling colony of New South Wales illustrates Māori concepts and practices of sovereignty and laws of obligations. It is also a deliberate mis-remembering of Māori resistance and the consistent assertion of Māori voice in both engaging with and rejecting settler law. Contemporary politics and jurisprudence wrestle with understanding our history as part of the weaving together of our legal future in Aotearoa. Reckoning with that past requires repairing the record, and recognising the existence and operation of Māori law. A number of recent developments are providing hope in this space – including decolonisation and indigenisation of legal education.Item Dogma or Data? Why Sentencing Reforms in NZ Will Annoy Judges and Clog the Courts(The Conversation, 2024-09-23) Gledhill, Kris