In “Democracy Briefing: Foundations of a constitutional crisis?”, Bryce Edwards has pointed to the activist behaviour of the courts. He has signalled the possibility of a constitutional crisis because of the activism of some judges of New Zealand’s senior courts.
There have always been activist judges, those who are more adventurous than others in the development of the law, who may rightly be described as legal activists. As former Australian High Court Justice Michael Kirby put it when comparing the austere Australian Justice Sir Owen Dixon with the avuncular English Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning:
