Gary Judd KC has told MPs law students were being "co-opted" into advancing a political agenda of decolonisation by having to do compulsory tikanga Māori studies. Photo: RNZ / Anneke Smith
MPs are considering a senior lawyer's request that Parliament put a stop to compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students.
Gary Judd KC filed a complaint to the government's Regulations Review Committee about the mandatory course earlier this year.
He has now told MPs law students were being "co-opted" into advancing a political agenda of decolonisation by having to do the course.
"There is only one good reason for making the learning of tikanga compulsory for all students and that is that it is an essential part of the skill set of a practising lawyer."
Judd said this was not the case and argued there had been "a determined and concerted" effort by political activists, including some of the country's top judges, to make the "amorphous spiritual culture" part of the law.
"Compulsory tikanga can't be disentangled from the attempts by certain sections of the judiciary to ramrod tikanga into the law and they are aided and abetted by lawyers who have abandoned their commitment to the rule of law and are, along with many academics and allies in the public service, riding a bandwagon decked out in currently fashionable decolonisation colours."
Judd said the Supreme Court had "completely overstepped the constitutional boundary" in its decision in the Peter Ellis case that reaffirmed tikanga's place in New Zealand law.
"I come back to the constitutional position and say that Parliament really has to stand up and affirm the fact that Parliament is sovereign and if we're going to have radical changes to the law such as this then it is only Parliament that has the constitutional right to do it."
Judd KC's complaint was supported by lawyer Thomas Newman who described the mandatory course as "highly political and illegitimate" and argued it unduly encroached on the rights and liberties of law students.
"When the likes of the Law Society, the New Zealand Bar Association and others express their endorsement of tikanga and making it a compulsory subject they are simply engaging in prestige politics.
"This is calculated to intimidate dissent and create a false impression of the legitimacy of tikanga and its relevance to legal practice. Do not be deceived. Tikanga is not law."
The New Zealand Council of Legal Education chair Justice Neil Campbell told MPs the independent body, responsible for prescribing courses for law study, was a "very broadly representative" group of legal experts who had introduced compulsory tikanga studies after a long consultation process.
He said tikanga was "increasingly relevant" to the practice of law in New Zealand and making it a compulsory course did not force students to subscribe to its ideas.
"It doesn't require them to subscribe to tikanga. It doesn't even require them to subscribe to cases like Ellis, which have identified the role that tikanga plays in New Zealand law.
"The law schools around New Zealand already require, as a result of regulations long passed by the council, students to take all sorts of subjects; contract law and tort law and so on.
"There are aspects of tort law that essentially reflect humanitarian, socialist approaches to the law... yes we require the students to learn those aspects of tort law but we don't require them to subscribe to the underlying philosophies of those aspects."
He also pointed to the legal groups that supported compulsory tikanga studies for law students.
"They're not part of some cabal of revolutionaries; the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute of New Zealand, the New Zealand Bar Association, the New Zealand Law Society, the Criminal Bar Association and a number of very senior KCs of the same sort of generation as Mr Judd.
"I very much encourage you as a committee to pay attention to those views which have simply reinforced the council's view that this is a subject matter that should be compulsory for law students."
There is not set date as to when MPs will come back with their decision.
