New Zealand runs the common law at its simplest: one parliament of a single chamber, no federal layer, no entrenched constitution, and a court pyramid four levels high. Like the UK, it relies on statutes, conventions and an ordinary-statute bill of rights rather than judicially enforced supreme law.
What makes it unlike anywhere else is the Treaty of Waitangi — the 1840 compact between the British Crown and Māori. The Treaty is not directly enforceable as supreme law, but its principles run through legislation, a standing tribunal investigates Crown breaches, and tikanga Māori is increasingly recognised as a source of law in the courts.
A single elected chamber, chosen by proportional representation, makes every law. There is no senate, no provinces, no entrenched constitution to satisfy — parliamentary sovereignty in nearly pure form.
The standard Westminster arrangement: the King as head of state, a Governor-General acting on advice, government by whoever holds the confidence of the house.
Local councils exercise only delegated powers. A statute passed in Wellington is the law everywhere — there is no division-of-powers litigation, which occupies so much of Canadian and Australian constitutional law.
Many statutes require decision-makers to act consistently with Treaty principles; settlements of historical claims are enacted as legislation; and the courts increasingly engage with tikanga (Māori custom and law) within the common law itself.
The final court of appeal, hearing cases by leave where a matter of general or public importance arises — or where a substantial miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
Courts cannot invalidate legislation. The Bill of Rights Act works through interpretation: statutes are read consistently with rights where possible, and courts may formally declare an inconsistency for Parliament to consider.
Since 1974, the Accident Compensation scheme has covered injuries on a no-fault basis — and in exchange, suing for personal injury is barred. A whole field of tort law that dominates courtrooms elsewhere in the family simply does not exist here.
The courts have recognised tikanga Māori as part of New Zealand's common law where applicable — a development with no precise parallel in the rest of the tradition.
The standard hierarchy applies: Supreme Court decisions bind all courts. Pre-2004 Privy Council decisions remain binding until departed from.
Available for serious criminal charges, with judge-alone trials common for the rest. Civil juries are almost extinct — defamation aside.
Canada and New Zealand share the Westminster inheritance and the late goodbye to the Privy Council — 1949 and 2004 respectively. For Canadian lawyers, the points of fascination are the ones Canada lacks: proportional representation, no-fault accident compensation, and a treaty relationship built into the machinery of government.