The way in which New Zealand's Supreme Court communicates its decisions to the wider public is currently under close scrutiny by a group of US researchers.
Doctor Rhonda Evans, the director of the Edward A. Clark Center for Australia and New Zealand Studies at the University of Texas, and two graduate students are in New Zealand meeting people with a connection to the Court.
She said while lawyers and the wider legal community can easily digest decisions from higher courts, the internet has made it easier for courts to publish their decisions to a broader audience.
Final decisions issued by the New Zealand Supreme Court are always accompanied by a press release and Dr Evans and her group are looking at what effect that, and the court's use of social media, has on coverage of decisions.
"Particularly as courts get involved in issues that are more contentious or have policy relevance it can matter how their decisions are portrayed in the media.
"That can affect their institutional legitimacy and the willingness of politicians to decide not to comply with the judicial decisions or to comply with [them]."
Ms Evans says the type of cases which reach New Zealand's Supreme Court are far less politically contentious than those before the highest court in her home country.
"I think law in New Zealand has not been as politicised as it has in the US and ... it makes sense that the New Zealand Supreme Court isn't a focal point for some of society's most contentious issues."
One of the US project's research assistants, Sierra Rowe, has read hundreds of New Zealand newspaper articles from 2012 to 2017 trying to identify which Supreme Court cases received the most coverage.
She found decisions which were accompanied by a press release were more likely to appear in media reports and they covered a range of topics.
"A pretty good amount of criminal cases ... those in which the government was involved; those two in particular, saw a lot of coverage.
"The widest by a long shot involved the Mighty River Power plant and associated Māori issues."
New Zealand court decisions often refer to judgments from overseas and Dr Evans said it is possible that eventually the US Supreme Court might reference judgments from here.
"Over time, some [US] Justices have been more inclined to dip into the case law of other countries, so it wouldn't surprise me if on a particular issue where the New Zealand Supreme Court had waded in ahead of the curve internationally, that that decision would be cited."
She said because the US and New Zealand share similar common law legal backgrounds, it would not be that anomalous for US judges to do that.
