New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990

New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
New Zealand Parliament
An Act (a) To affirm, protect, and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms in New Zealand; and (b) To affirm New Zealand's commitment to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Date of Royal Assent	28 August 1990
Date commenced	25 September 1990
Introduced by	Sir Geoffrey Palmer
Amendments
1993
Related legislation
Human Rights Act 1993
Status: Current legislation

The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (sometimes known by its acronym, NZBORA) is a statute of the Parliament of New Zealand setting out the rights and fundamental freedoms of anyone subject to New Zealand law as a Bill of rights. It is part of New Zealand's uncodified constitution.

In 1985 a White Paper entitled "A Bill of Rights for New Zealand", was tabled in Parliament by the then Minister of Justice, Hon Geoffrey Palmer. The paper proposed a number of controversial features, which sparked widespread debate:

The Bill then went to the Justice and Law Reform Select Committee, which recommended that New Zealand was "not yet ready" for a Bill of Rights in the form proposed by the White Paper. The Committee recommended that the Bill of Rights be introduced as an ordinary statute, which would not have the status of superior or entrenched law.

In its current form, the Bill of Rights is similar to the Canadian Bill of Rights, passed in 1960. The Act does create an atmosphere change in New Zealand law in that it provides judges the means to "interpret around" other acts to ensure enlarged liberty interests. The Bill of Rights has a liberty-maximising clause much like the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and this provides many opportunities for creative interpretation in favour of liberties and rights.

The Act applies only to acts done by the three branches of government (the legislature, executive and judiciary) of New Zealand, or by any person or body in the "performance of any public function, power, or duty" imposed by the law (Section 3).

Section 4 specifically denies the Act any supremacy over other legislation. The section states that Courts looking at cases under the Act cannot implicitly repeal or revoke, or make invalid or ineffective, or decline to apply any provision of any statute made by parliament, whether before or after the Act was passed because it is inconsistent with any provision of this Bill of Rights.

Section 5 allows for "Justified Limitations" on the rights guaranteed by the Act which are "subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society", which is the same wording as contained in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In July 2015 in Taylor v Attorney-General the Auckland High Court took the unprecedented step of issuing a formal declaration that an electoral law amendment stripping all prisoners of voting rights was an unjustifiable limit of section 12(a) of the Bill of Rights.

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