Professor Elisabeth McDonald, of Masterton, MNZM, for services to the law and education
Elisabeth McDonald has held several teaching and administrative positions at Victoria University’s Law School and is a Professor at the University of Canterbury’s Law School. In the late 1990s, she contributed to the Law Commission’s Women’s Access to Justice Project and on reform of evidence law in New Zealand. She was co-convenor of the Feminist Judgments Project Aotearoa, later co-editing the project’s book. She researched new approaches to the prosecution and punishment of rape in New Zealand in collaboration with the Law Commission, which culminated in the publication of the influential book ‘From “Real Rape” to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand’.