New Zealand Law Review

I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the evening (Sign)

I then specifically greet you: Professor Paul Rishworth, Dean of Law at the University of Auckland and one-time editor of the New Zealand Law Review; Hon Justice Raynor Asher, Judge of the High Court of New Zealand and President of the Legal Research Foundation and your fellow LRF council members; Hanna Wilberg and Christopher Hare, present Editors of the New Zealand Law Review and present Law Faculty members at this University; Members of the Editorial Board; Distinguished Guests otherwise, most notably former editors, Bernard Brown, Ken Palmer and Rick Bigwood; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for inviting my wife Susan and I to attend this reception to mark the 20th anniversary celebrations of the New Zealand Law Review.  I would like to take this opportunity to speak at little of the significance of the publication whose longevity we celebrate tonight.

The New Zealand Law Review was established in its current form in 1989 under the editorship of Ron Paterson, most recently New Zealand’s Health and Disability Commissioner.  With a preface from Robin (later Lord) Cooke, the publication set a high standard for scholarly research and commentary, attracting contributions not only from New Zealand, but elsewhere. Its predecessor had been the New Zealand Recent Law Review, established by the Legal Research Foundation with a clear view to foster and encourage legal scholarship and analysis. 

I am lucky enough to remember the predecessor before that – Recent Law whose editor in 1967 when it all started, John Aeneas Byron O’Keefe was in his way one of the most singular people one might meet in 10 lifetimes - valuer, plumber, civil servant, marriage celebrant, raconteur, water diviner, justice of the peace, authority on mining and land law,  and sometime law lecturer– someone who could be “Byron” to some and “Barney” to others with equal aplomb – who decided that there was a niche between the New Zealand University Law Review and the New Zealand Law Journal and a place for serious comment to be made which would be useful for the practitioner.  And so, assisted by and then followed by Bernard Brown and Jim Evans and in time, Ken Palmer – under whose watch came Recent Law New Series – before the later morphings I have described.  As an aside, one of the contributors of a crisp and astute observation about the presumption wrought by the first blood alcohol legislation cases Stewart v Police was by later to be Prime Minister David Lange.

As another aside, I know a little of the difficulty of producing a quality academic journal myself albeit from the business-end of the publication, having served as the business manager of the 1968 edition of Auckland University Law Review.  I can honestly say that despite the adrenalin surges involved, I am still friends with the co-editors, Gary Judd, QC and Grant Hammond, now a Justice of the Court of Appeal.

Returning to the publication at hand, which has the delightful words on the inside front cover these days:- “The New Zealand Law Review is a refereed journal, combining scholarly reviews of all major subject areas in New Zealand law with articles on important legal topics.  Instructions to authors appear on the inside back cover”. I am pleased to say that the high standards have continued under the editorship of Paul Rishworth, Janet McLean, Tom Telfer, Grant Huscroft, Neil Campbell, Scott Optican, Rick Bigwood and most recently Chris Hare and Hanna Wilberg.  The updaters have included leading lawyers and academics from many parts of the country.

I have learned that the Law Review’s quality was recently independently recognised by the Australian Research Council which placed the New Zealand Law Review among the top five percent of journals worldwide.

This scholarly research has been further bolstered by the periodic subject reviews which the Law Review provides on recent legal developments.  Written by leading authorities in specific areas, they have focused on matters as diverse as constitutional law—a subject close at hand to myself—through to torts, contract, evidence and employment, and Treaty of Waitangi jurisprudence, to name but a few.

While the Law Review is a useful tool, available for the finger tips of law students, practitioners and the judiciary alike, it represents something more.

In 1840, with the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand was instantly bequeathed the laws, customs, conventions, history and traditions of the Westminster system.   That system quickly took root in places as diverse as Canada, Australia, India and South Africa. 

Separated by distance and facing its own unique circumstances and conditions, New Zealand law and custom developed its own distinctive character.  The evolution continued apace despite the powers retained by the United Kingdom Parliament until 1947 and by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council till 2004. 

In speaking at a reception earlier this year after the first ceremonial session of the New Zealand Supreme Court in its new home, I quoted the following comment of Justice Sir Joshua Williams, a famous New Zealand Judge, that I believe illustrate these developments well. Williams said in 1903:  “Fifty years in New Zealand mean much more than fifty years in England. The changes, political, social and material that have taken place in New Zealand during the latter half of the nineteenth century are greater than those that have taken place in England from the time of the Tudors to the present day.”

More than a century on, the pace of change has never slowed as New Zealand’s Parliament and its courts have continually adapted the Westminster inheritance to this nation’s needs.

The Law Review then, plays a key role in helping practitioners make sense of these ongoing changes, but also in providing a channel in which the developments can be analysed and critiqued.

The law is not fixed, but instead an organic, living creature.  The great American Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, once described words in a way that also aptly summarises the law more widely.  In the 1918 case of Towne v Eisner, Holmes wrote: “A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.”  

The Law Review catalogues ever changing hues, and feeds back into the process of change.   That articles published in this journal are regularly cited by other academics, and the judiciary, continues the ongoing circle of legal evolution.

So it is that we gather to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the New Zealand Law Review.   In New Zealand, despite the significant number of rights that are conferred on those who reach 18 years of age, it remains the tradition that we celebrate one’s coming of age at 21.

However, no-one in this audience will need reminding that under the Age of Majority Act 1970, one officially becomes an adult at age 20.  With that legal stamp of approval, I think it is fair to say that the New Zealand Law Review, which now celebrates its 20th anniversary, has definitely come of age.

As Governor-General, and as an erstwhile practitioner of the law, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the New Zealand Law Review, its editors, both current and former, and its editorial board, and the New Zealand Legal Research Foundation, on your accomplishments to date.  I think everyone looks forward to your continuing success.

And on what I hope is a satisfactory note of congratulation, I will close in New Zealand’s first language Māori, by offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.