LEGAL RESEARCH
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LEGAL RESEARCH
Foundation’s inaugural grants boost legal projects The Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation announced five inaugural grants totalling over $1.7 million in February. The Foundation was established by District Court Judge Ian Borrin shortly before his death in March 2016, in memory of his parents. Judge Borrin left $38 million in his will to the Foundation, to support legal research, education and scholarship in New Zealand. As well as the inaugural grants, the Foundation announced a collaborative relationship with the New Zealand Law Foundation, which includes a commitment to contribute up to $150,000 a year to co-funded projects. Details of the inaugural grants:
He Whaipaanga Hou update research By Nick Butcher A research project on New Zealand’s criminal justice system and how it affects Māori has received a grant of $614,420 over 18 months. This is a large-scale research project led by Treaty of Waitangi expert and indigenous rights legal scholar Moana Jackson. Mr Jackson of Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine and Ngāti Porou descent, received an honorary doctorate in law from Victoria University at the end of last year. He graduated from the same university with a Bachelor of Laws in 1969. In 1988, Mr Jackson undertook ground-breaking research on Māori and the criminal justice system for the then Justice Department. His investigation into the justice system and its bias against Māori led to the seminal report He Whaipaanga Hou, which has reshaped the national debate and changed understandings of Māori law. The update project he has been leading follows on from that work, again tackling New Zealand’s criminal justice system, its institutions, operations, policies and effectiveness in relation to Māori. Moana Jackson says, currently, 51% of men in prison are Māori, and 64% of women in prison are Māori. “These are shameful figures. Since this issue was first highlighted 30 years ago, little has changed. The Borrin Foundation grant will support our essential research into why our country continues to imprison Māori men and women at such high rates. I hope our report will lead to a more open and imaginative discussion about the criminal justice system,” he says.
Grant will boost group’s hosting of second hui on criminal justice By Craig Stephen A grant of $43,210 will help the justice advocacy group JustSpeak host an annual conference this year on transformative change in 76
the criminal justice system. Whiti Te Rā 2018 is a kaupapa Māori conference which will include socio-legal research, legal education, and presentations from leading legal and academic figures in the area of criminal justice. Organisers says it’s being held because of the failure to address the disproportionate incarceration of Māori. The conference, which follows the inaugural hui in 2017 in Rotorua, will consider how policies, practices, and mindsets can be changed to shift the status quo. It will be held in Auckland at a date to be announced. “The hui in 2017 was spurred by the Waitangi Tribunal’s findings that the Department of Corrections was in breach of its Treaty obligations, by failing to address the disproportionately high rates of Māori re-offending,” says Tania Sawicki Mead, JustSpeak’s director. The 2017 conference featured justice advocates Kim Workman and Annette Sykes, and one of the outcomes was to establish a working group to achieve some of the goals that were set. Ms Sawicki Mead says the Whiti Te Rā ‘Call to Action’ set out a number of goals under three key areas: prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration, including specific calls for drug law reform, bringing Te Ao Māori perspectives and alternatives into the justice and education system, and repealing the Bail Amendment Act. Attendees for this year’s hui are due to come from several different sectors and backgrounds, including lawyers, academics, advocates, ex-prisoners, community leaders and government officials. JustSpeak says the conference will enable conversations between people who would not normally meet, with the intention that such conversations and relationships will be the catalyst for much more. JustSpeak expects a broad range of people to use their collective experience and expertise to build an action-oriented plan at the conference to deliver a more