Deputies consider request to interrupt tikanga law course

Gary Judd KC told MPs that law students were being “co-opted” to promote a political agenda of decolonization by having to undertake compulsory tikanga Māori studies.
Photo: RNZ/Anneke Smith

MPs are considering a senior lawyer’s call for Parliament to end mandatory tikanga Māori studies for law students.

Gary Judd KC filed a complaint with the government’s Regulation Review Committee about the mandatory course earlier this year.

He now told deputies that law students were being “co-opted” to advance a political agenda of decolonization by having to take the course.

“There is only one good reason to make learning tikanga mandatory for all students: it is that it is an essential part of a practicing lawyer’s skill set.”

Judd said this was not the case and argued that there had been “a determined and concerted effort” by political activists, including some of the country’s top judges, to make “amorphous spiritual culture” part of the law.

“Mandatory tikanga cannot be divorced from attempts by certain sectors of the judiciary to turn tikanga into law and are aided and abetted by lawyers who have abandoned their commitment to the rule of law and are, along with many academics and allies in service public, embarking on a movement adorned with the colors of decolonization currently in vogue.”

Judd said the Supreme Court “completely overstepped constitutional bounds” in its decision in the Peter Ellis case which (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/476286/peter-ellis-supreme – court-ruling-reaffirms-tikanga-relevance-to-the-legal-structure

reaffirmed the place of tikanga in New Zealand law).

“I go back to the constitutional position and say that Parliament really has to stand up and affirm the fact that Parliament is sovereign and if we are going to have radical changes to the law like this, then only Parliament has the right constitutional power to do that.”

Judd KC’s complaint was supported by attorney Thomas Newman, who described the mandatory course as “highly political and illegitimate” and argued that it unduly invaded the rights and freedoms of law students.

“When bodies like the Law Society, the New Zealand Bar Association and others express their support for tikanga and make it a mandatory subject, they are simply engaging in prestige politics.

“This is calculated to intimidate dissent and create a false impression of the legitimacy of tikanga and its relevance to legal practice. Do not be fooled. Tikanga is not law.”

New Zealand Legal Education Council chairman Justice Neil Campbell told MPs the independent body, responsible for prescribing courses for legal studies, was a “broadly representative” group of legal experts who introduced mandatory tikanga studies after a long consultation process.

He said tikanga was “increasingly relevant” to the practice of law in New Zealand and that making it a compulsory course did not force students to subscribe to its ideas.

“It doesn’t require them to sign the tikanga. It doesn’t even require them to sign on to cases like Ellis’, which identified the role tikanga plays in New Zealand law.

“Law schools across New Zealand already require, as a result of long-ago council regulations, that students take all types of subjects; contract law, civil law and so on.

“There are aspects of tort law that essentially reflect humanitarian and socialist approaches to the law…yes, we require students to learn these aspects of tort law, but we do not require them to subscribe to the philosophies underlying these aspects.”

He also pointed to legal groups that supported mandatory tikanga studies for law students.

“They are not part of some conspiracy of revolutionaries; the New Zealand Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators, the New Zealand Bar Association, the New Zealand Law Society, the Criminal Bar Association and several very senior KCs of the same type of generation like Mr. Judd.

“I encourage you, as a committee, to pay attention to opinions that simply reinforced the board’s view that this is a subject that should be mandatory for law students.”

There is no set date for when deputies will return with their decision.