Magna Carta's Legacy: Ideas of Liberty and Due Process in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act

Abstract

This article examines the approach taken to the protection of liberty in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA). Although its historical antecedents can be traced all the way back to Runnymede, the particular approach taken to the protection of liberty in the NZBORA is unusual in international terms. Specifically, the NZBORA does not contain a general right to liberty, instead preferring to delineate and protect specific instantiations of the right (such as the right to be free from arbitrary detention and the right to freedom of expression). The article places this somewhat idiosyncratic approach in its historical context, and outlines the reasons for it. It examines the significance of this approach for New Zealand law and, ultimately, questions whether it ought to be sustained.