A simple nullity? : the Wi Parata case in New Zealand law and history / David V. Williams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Williams, David V. (David Vernon)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hadfield, Octavius, 1814-1904.

Treaty of Waitangi (1840 February 6).

Treaty of Waitangi.

Māori (New Zealand people)--Civil rights--History--19th century.

Māori (New Zealand people).

Parata, Wiremu--Trials, litigation, etc.

Parata, Wiremu.

Hadfield, Octavius, 1814-1904--Trials, litigation, etc.

Hadfield, Octavius.

Māori (New Zealand people)--Land tenure--Law and legislation.

Ngāti Toa (New Zealand people)--Land tenure.

Ngāti Toa (New Zealand people).

Land tenure.

Māori (New Zealand people)--Land tenure.

Māori (New Zealand people)--Civil rights.

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 287 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Auckland, N.Z. : Auckland University Press, 2011.

Summary:

In 1877, The New Zealand Supreme Court decided a case, Wi Parata v Bishop of Wellington, that centred on the ownership and use of the Whitireia Block, near Porirua. Ngati Toa had given this land to the Anglican Church for a college that was never built. In the course of refusing to inquire into the ownership of the block, the judges dismissed the relevance of the Treaty of Waitangi: 'So far indeed as that instrument purported to cede the sovereignty - a matter with which we are not here directly concerned - it must be regarded as a simple nullity.'

Over the past twenty-five years, judges, lawyers and commentators have castigated this 'simple nullity' view of the Treaty. The 'infamous' case has been seen as symbolic of the neglect of Maori rights by settlers, government and the law in New Zealand. In this book, David V. Williams takes a fresh look at the Wi Parata case - the protagonists, the origins of the dispute, the years of legal back and forth - affording new insights into both Maori-Pakeha relations in the nineteenth century and the legal position of the Treaty.

The factual background to the Wi Parata case, Williams argues, tells us much about nineteenth-century Maori acting as they thought best for their people and about debates in Pakeha jurisprudence over the recognition or rejection of customary Maori rights. Behind the apparent dismissal of the Treaty as a 'simple nullity' lay deep arguments about the place of Maori and Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand. Those arguments are as relevant now as they were then. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The arrival of Christianity on the Kapiti coast 10

Chapter 2 An 'exemplary haven' in a troubled land 22

Chapter 3 A fraud on the donors? 43

Chapter 4 A gift or a grant? 67

Chapter 5 Why did the Church cling to the gifted land? 94

Chapter 6 'Because of what I heard said at Kohimarama' 118

Chapter 7 In the Supreme Court at Wellington 139

Chapter 8 The long (and continuing) aftermath 175

Chapter 9 Revisionist legal history 199

Chapter 10 Contemporary comments 234.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781869404840

186940484X

OCLC:

709581625