Post by Kiwi Frontline on Dec 18, 2016 7:34:03 GMT 12
SIR GEOFFREY’S LAST MONUMENT
It seems to be the season for tinkering with our constitutional arrangements. We have the “The report of Makiki Mai Aotearoa The “independent working group on constitutional transformation” and we have Sir Geoffrey Palmer, and his acolyte’s proposed written constitution for New Zealand. The former is part of the seemingly unending attempts by small and unrepresentative bodies of persons claiming some Maori blood to persuade the general public that the Treaty of Waitangi requires that they should have equal political and constitutional standing along with the other ninety percent of New Zealanders.
The latter purports to be a serious attempt by two authors claiming to be versed in constitutional law and practice to encourage the voting public to sever our ties with the Monarchy and in its place to adopt a written constitution which among other bon bons enshrines the Treaty of Waitangi as New Zealand’s founding constitutional document. This article is concerned with the latter.
1. Why a written constitution?
The question not confronted in the draft document is why do we need one? Are our present unwritten arrangements broken? Is there some imminent threat to the liberty of the subject which can only be averted by writing down and enacting into law a codification of all of the existing protections which preserve our liberties? Unless I have missed some looming danger of an attack on those guarantees of our way of life which we hold dear, and an imminent failure of the existing arrangements to ward off such an attack the answer is unequivocally “no”. Indeed it is difficult to identify a society which offers more clearly enunciated and readily available protection of its rights and liberties than does New Zealand.....
Continue reading Anthony Willy’s comprehensive NZCPR guest commentary here > www.nzcpr.com/sir-geoffreys-last-monument/#more-20912
It seems to be the season for tinkering with our constitutional arrangements. We have the “The report of Makiki Mai Aotearoa The “independent working group on constitutional transformation” and we have Sir Geoffrey Palmer, and his acolyte’s proposed written constitution for New Zealand. The former is part of the seemingly unending attempts by small and unrepresentative bodies of persons claiming some Maori blood to persuade the general public that the Treaty of Waitangi requires that they should have equal political and constitutional standing along with the other ninety percent of New Zealanders.
The latter purports to be a serious attempt by two authors claiming to be versed in constitutional law and practice to encourage the voting public to sever our ties with the Monarchy and in its place to adopt a written constitution which among other bon bons enshrines the Treaty of Waitangi as New Zealand’s founding constitutional document. This article is concerned with the latter.
1. Why a written constitution?
The question not confronted in the draft document is why do we need one? Are our present unwritten arrangements broken? Is there some imminent threat to the liberty of the subject which can only be averted by writing down and enacting into law a codification of all of the existing protections which preserve our liberties? Unless I have missed some looming danger of an attack on those guarantees of our way of life which we hold dear, and an imminent failure of the existing arrangements to ward off such an attack the answer is unequivocally “no”. Indeed it is difficult to identify a society which offers more clearly enunciated and readily available protection of its rights and liberties than does New Zealand.....
Continue reading Anthony Willy’s comprehensive NZCPR guest commentary here > www.nzcpr.com/sir-geoffreys-last-monument/#more-20912