Latest Legal CommentarIES
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Armistice Day and Its Sequel
The centenary ceremony for Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, at Auckland Domain, set amidst over 18,000 white crosses representing every New Zealand service man or woman who was killed in World War I, was predictably moving. There is a view that World War I represents the birth of the nation of New Zealand. Probably an exaggeration but I have always thought that the two World Wars are hugely significant in New Zealand’s history and in shaping who we are. My father drove tanks and slept in trenches in North Africa, Crete and Italy in World War II and my boyhood was shaped by his stories and photographs from “the War”. More...
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
An Easy Read of the Rule of Law in the World of Fiction
It is now over 8 years since the Human Rights Review Tribunal first ruled in the Atkinson case that the then policy of the Ministry of Health that family members who provided care (usually full-time) for their seriously disabled (usually intellectually disabled) adult children were not entitled to be paid for so doing, notwithstanding that the State was prepared to pay professional care givers to do so. The Tribunal declared that the policy was discriminatory and unlawful. Appeals by the Ministry of Health to both the High Court and the Court of Appeal were dismissed, it being held that the policy constituted unlawful discrimination under the Bill of Rights Act [Ministry of Health v. Atkinson [2012] 3 NZLR 456 (CA)]. More...