to benefit New Zealand
Researching Royal Role in NZ
10th March 2009
A research project that could develop an indispensable tool to help shape New Zealand's constitutional future has received a New Zealand Law Foundation grant of $134,769.
The three-year project will study and analyse the constitutional roles of the Queen of New Zealand and her Governor-General.
Wellington barrister Alison Quentin-Baxter and Dundee University Law Professor Janet McLean will lead the research.
In 1980, Alison Quentin-Baxter was contracted by the Prime Minister's Department to review the Letters Patent Constituting the Office of the Governor-General of New Zealand, issued in 1917. On the basis of her report, new Letters Patent were prepared and issued by the Queen in 1983.
The new work she and Professor McLean are proposing is much wider-ranging research. It includes the role of the sovereign herself as Queen of New Zealand - "a matter scarcely documented at all" - and also the powers and functions of the Governor-General under statute law.
The project will include the writing and publishing of a book on the topic; a book Alison Quentin-Baxter says "will fill an acknowledged gap in New Zealand legal writing."
It would not propose any reform of existing law, although it might point out aspects that were uncertain or inadequate.
"The constitutional roles of the Queen of New Zealand and her Governor-General, including the question whether they still have actual power or influence, are not well understood," Alison Quentin-Baxter says.
"The book will focus on the things still done in person by the Queen or the Governor-General, acting on the advice of responsible New Zealand Ministers or, on rare occasions and with the guidance of constitutional conventions, in the exercise of a personal discretion.
"Although the book will be firmly grounded in the discipline of constitutional law, it will aim to reach as wide an audience as possible. It will therefore be written in a style that makes it accessible to readers who are not lawyers, while still meeting the standards required to establish it as an authoritative legal text.
"It will be an essential reference work for Parliamentarians, officials and the lawyers who, increasingly, are called upon to advise them or members of the public on aspects of the working of our constitutional system.
"It will have a place in all law libraries and will also be a useful reference for academic lawyers, law students, historians, political scientists and all others with an interest in the matters with which it deals.
"The book will also be of interest to a wide range of other readers, especially if the question whether New Zealand should remain a monarchy or become a republic continues to gather momentum as a public issue.
"The book itself will not deal with that question, but New Zealanders ought not to consider making such a major change to their constitution without having a good understanding of the present roles of the Queen and the Governor-General," she says.
"If there were to be a referendum on the question whether New Zealand should become a republic, the book would make a major contribution to public education.
"If the answer to that question were 'yes', it would then become an indispensable tool in working out the changes that would need to be made to our existing constitutional arrangements."
After teaching constitutional law at Victoria University in the late 1960s, Alison Quentin-Baxter specialised in assisting the people of small island states in making constitutions for self-governance or independence. From 1987 to 1994, she was the Director of the Law Commission.
Formerly an Associate Professor at Auckland University, Professor McLean holds the Chair in Law and Governance in the law school at Dundee University. She has been widely published in the area of public and administrative law.
The first task of the project team is to recruit a competent researcher. Ideally, a well-qualified researcher working full-time for about a year will undertake the initial research. The appointee will have a good law degree and other relevant qualifications, interests or experience. The Cabinet Office will provide office space for the researcher, together with logistic support.
The research tasks will include a search of the literature, statutes, cases and other relevant material, and especially a file search of the material held by the Cabinet Office and other official records. The aim is to identify and explain the practice in New Zealand as well as the law.
Alison Quentin-Baxter welcomes expressions of interest from law graduates or near-graduates who are interested in this opportunity to obtain an inside view. Anyone interested in the researcher position should contact Gillian Pettit in the Cabinet Office on 04 817 9749, by Friday 27 March.
[Source: LawTalk]