Waitangi Fisheries head backs Supreme Court bill

1.00pm

The Privy Council lacks knowledge of Maori and a move to a New Zealand-based supreme court is necessary to help the treaty settlement process, Waitangi Fisheries chairman Shane Jones said today.

Mr Jones was making a personal submission to a parliamentary committee considering a Government proposal to replace the London-based Privy Council with a New Zealand supreme court.

Te Ohu Kai Moana (the Fisheries Commission) had been to the Privy Council twice in the last decade.

One case in 1997 involved the definition of iwi and allocation of Maori fishing quota.

"The Privy Council did not look at the definitional issue directly but instead held that there were procedural errors in the Court of Appeal's handling of the case and therefore remitted the matter back to the High Court trial judge for further hearing," Mr Jones told the committee.

The other case, last year, involved the same issues. The Privy Council dismissed the appeal and confirmed the New Zealand court's definition that iwi meant traditional tribes.

"The Supreme Court Bill is a proposal that's time has come. Due to the lack of knowledge in the Privy Council on matters Maori and the costs and delays of taking a case to another country, I believe that the treaty settlement process will be assisted by a final court in New Zealand."

Mr Jones also agreed with a proposal that one member of the court be well-versed in tikanga Maori.

"I believe that New Zealand will see more Maori judges in the future but this relies on more Maori graduating and then practising in law."

On Monday, the Bar Association condemned as "dangerous" the possibility of appointing a supreme court member on the basis of race.

Bar Association president Robert Dobson said in a submission to the committee an advisory group on the proposal observed it was likely the one court member well versed in tikanga Maori would have Maori ancestry'," Mr Dobson said.

"With great respect, without more clarity, the association considers the notion of such a convention to be dangerous."

Appointing a "Maori member" of the court was unlikely to achieve the confidence of all New Zealanders in the court, he said.

"There is no precedent for one member of a court to be an expert adviser on issues arising in one area," Mr Dobson said.

"It would be unhealthy for a final appellate court to be structured on terms that the appointment of one of its number, on account of specialist expertise in an area, requires other members of the court to defer to that judge on such issues."

The association believed it would be better if the court as a whole was required to have sufficient understanding of Tikanga Maori to allow them to deal expertly with all such issues, Mr Dobson said.

- NZPA