Tikanga and the state: two laws for all?
Law is not the mere imposition of force; it claims a kind of rightful authority and legitimacy. To have the rule of law and not rule just by force, people need to be able to recognise the law’s claim to justly administer public standards for a community. The rule of law in New Zealand presents a particularly difficult challenge due to overlapping claims and recognitions of state law and tikanga Māori. If state law excludes or fails to engage with tikanga, it effectively imposes itself forcefully upon those who recognise tikanga as an operative legal order.
In this talk, Dr Nicole Roughan explains why that’s not just a problem for those who recognise tikanga, but for everyone – because it means that some people are governed through law and others through force. That’s fundamentally at odds with equality, undermines the claimed legitimacy of state law and leaves us all with the rule of force rather than the rule of law. In response, Nicole argues that to have the rule of law in Aotearoa requires having not one law, but two laws, for all.
Bio
Dr Nicole Roughan is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law, a Rutherford Discovery Fellow and co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Legal and Political Theory. She has held academic appointments at Cambridge University, the National University of Singapore and Victoria University of Wellington. Nicole's research in the field of philosophy of law includes work on law’s authority, law’s persons (both officials and subjects) and law’s relation to the state. Nicole publishes widely on theories of Indigenous-state interactions and topics in general jurisprudence.
Event
6:30pm @16 Tun, 10/26 Jellicoe Street, Auckland 1010
Also speaking at this location at 8:00pm is Simon Ingram
