Dr Bryce Edwards: Democracy Briefing - Foundations of a constitutional crisis?

The first question in politics is “who rules?” It’s at the forefront of the debate about David Seymour’s Treaty Principles bill, which holds that the Government has the ultimate right to govern and Parliament has the full power to make laws. Te Pati Māori argues that Māori never ceded sovereignty and should hold governing power over themselves.

But there’s another power struggle taking place in the background of this debate: a quiet but profound contest between Parliament and the courts over the power to make laws. In the week that Seymour’s bill passed its first reading, an open letter from forty-two members of the King’s Council called on the Prime Minister and the Attorney General to abandon the legislation, and it contained the aside “even if Parliament can legislate in this way (which is uncertain)…”