The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act

Abstract

This is the text of Sir Robin Cooke’s contribution to the New Zealand Law Conference held in Wellington on 3 March 1993. In it, he explains the symbolic significance of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and offers his view on how judges should approach its interpretation. He describes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 as a confirmation of New Zealand’s “commitment to rights and freedoms implicit in modern democracies”. He argues that even if society falls short of these ideals, the law should express the values that it aims to serve. So he says that judges must not decline to decide a case simply because it is difficult to apply generalised rights in individual cases. In his view, a Bill of Rights must be interpreted generously and simply, whether it is entrenched law or not. Abstract by Elizabeth Chan.