Good Government: The United States Shapes a New Zealand Politician

Abstract

As a young man, New Zealander Geoffrey Palmer studied at the University of Chicago Law School in 1966-67. His stint in Chicago exposed him to ideas that influenced his political career. When Palmer became the deputy prime minister of New Zealand (1984-89) and prime minister (1989-90), the policies he promoted showed the influences he absorbed in Chicago. The tradition of Progressivism in Illinois led Palmer to seek good government through law reform. In 1966, Chicago’s Professor Bernard D. Meltzer taught the law of evidence to Geoffrey Palmer. The course convinced Palmer that the common law was in need of radical reform. Later, as the Minister of Justice in New Zealand, he started codifying the law of evidence. The Evidence Act was finally passed in 2006. Professor Harry Kalven Jr. admitted young Palmer to his seminar on ‘Problems of the First Amendment.’ The class fired Palmer’s interest in the law of defamation. In the mid-1970s, he was a member of a committee, which recommended ending the law of criminal libel and slander in New Zealand, which happened in 1992. The criminal law of sedition was repealed in 2007, after a New Zealand Law Commission report over which Palmer presided. The University of Chicago also taught Palmer US constitutional law. To a New Zealander, rose with the idea of parliamentary supremacy, the ability of US judges to strike down laws seemed radical. As Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Palmer oversaw the enactment of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. During the 1967 Middle East war, Professor Soia Mentschikoff taught Palmer international law, bringing American legal realism to the subject. It was a perspective that impressed Palmer. More than 40 years later, he chaired a United Nations inquiry into the Gaza flotilla incident of 31 May 2010