Here’s what you won’t read in the Herald Re hidden judicial policy to favour Maori over non Maori.
The Rt Hon Lord Cooke in his 1994 Harkness Henry speech made the position of the judiciary clear: Cooke LJ said:
“The phrase "the principles of the Treaty" was in the original Act. At no stage has the legislature attempted to define it. Of necessity, therefore, the courts and the Tribunal had to accept the responsibility of giving it life.
The challenge of Treaty of Waitangi jurisprudence has been two-fold: to define the principles of the Treaty and to do what the courts can to ensure that they are given practical effect.
We have not achieved everything one could have wished. But at least in the fields of lands, forests and fisheries, some tangible results can be seen. They have been achieved by an interaction of three forces: first, some enlightened leadership on both the Crown and the Maori sides; secondly, the inquiries and reports of the Waitangi Tribunal, the concept of which as an essentially investigatory and recommendatory body may well find some counterpart in the new South Africa; thirdly, an increased willingness on the part of some modern courts to take into account the Treaty and the fiduciary concept. The responsibility of judicial decision is quite different from that of Tribunal recommendation. The functions are complementary. All three forces are probably essential to further progress.
It is obvious that, from the point of view of the future of our country, non-Maori have to adjust to an understanding that does not come easily to all: reparation must be made to the Maori people for past and continuing breaches of the Treaty by which they agreed to yield government. Lip service disclaimers of racial prejudice and token acknowledgments that the Treaty has not been honoured cannot be enough. An obligation must be seen to be honoured. On the Maori side it must be understood that the Treaty gave the Queen’s government, Kawanatanga, and foresaw continuing immigration. The development of New Zealand as a nation has been largely due to that immigration. Maori must recognise that it flowed from the Treaty and that both the history and economy of the nation rule out extravagant claims in the democracy now shared. Both partners should know that a narrow focus on the past is useless. The principles of the Treaty must be applied to give fair results in today's world.
The undertaking for that promise was first made by the Crown itself, but then when it was legislated it became the business of both the courts and Parliament to see those obligations were carried out.” End..
That speech raises serious questions such as how can non Maori get impartiality and even legal rights when the judges state they owe partnership fiduciary obligations to Maori?
I can answer it because I saw various judges- Greig J, Gault j, Henry J fraudulently manipulate evidence in the Matakana Island litigation to make sure Maori got ownership of 10,000 acres of private land.
My complaints resulted in no action except the Law Commission seeking submissions from the public on how the courts can be fixed but nothing happened it was a public relations exercise.
And the politicians stayed silent because none of them have the guts to protect lawful rights of non Maori. Russell Fairbrother spoke up and after government lawyer Mr X warned “he should shut his fucking mouth because if he goes around saying that against judges they’ll kill his kids”. - sure enough an explosion occurred in Mr Fairbrother’s daughters home in Hastings and his 2 grand daughters were killed and of course his career in parliament was over the Hansard record alone shows that.
In the Arklow (Matakana) case the facts demonstrated the bank was guilty. This was billions of dollars in assets at stake. But that didn’t matter because for the Crown to adhere to its Waitangi Treaty obligations the courts adopted a hidden policy of constructing a judgment that they knew was discordant with the facts and with the laws of equity.
“In coming to its decision, the Crown simply stole the Matakana Island land from Mr Wingate to settle the Crown’s Waitangi debts by ignoring the law and by ensuring that, no matter what, evidence proving the defendant bank’s guilt would be ignored.”
As for the Crown’s fiduciary and Treaty partnership obligations, the Crown failed to protect ordinary Maori of the Tauranga iwi because they orchestrated the ownership of Matakana Island land to be transferred into the personal names of the Maori leadership who petitioned the Crown for the return of sacred land. To make this point clear, the same Maori leaders and accountant who swore affidavits pleading for Crown assistance all personally benefited, which meant that the Crown assisted Maori leadership to steal from the people.
The Privy Council and the New Zealand Court of Appeal ignored law to pursue policy at my expense.
Within a few years of the Privy Council decision, those leaders sold the land they had previously claimed to be “sacred” even though they owed fiduciary and trust obligations to the people who entrusted them the leadership positions of the Maori people.