Law in Contemporary New Zealand Society

Running head: LAW IN CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY
LAW IN CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY
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Author Note

1LAW IN CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY
Introduction
A country’s legal system is put in place to ensure order and conformity with the customs
and norms of the societal structure. The implementation of the same is important in light of
governance and it should be used to ensure that the norms of the jurisdiction are adhered to. It
also ensures that all forms of deviance is punished proportionately and is used to formulate
amendments which further consolidate the position of law in those aspects. The people of the
jurisdiction must abide by these legislations and must conform to the same. New Zealand is a
constitutional monarchy and it functions as a Parliamentary democracy (Kelsey 2015). The
following paragraphs will discuss two bifurcations of laws in the legal framework of New
Zealand and will elaborate on the elements of each and how they interact with the citizens and
the parliament. The two legal categories for elaboration here are- Public laws and Private Laws.
Public Law
The public law of a jurisdiction refers to the laws enacted by the legislature of the same
which defines the relationship between the sovereign and the individuals existing within the said
jurisdiction. Thus, it is worthwhile to mention here that public law does not encompass the
entirety of all relationships of the individuals with the State as juristic persons would not fall
within the ambit of public law as it would be defined by private law legislations such as the law
governing Corporations (Hirschl 2014). The primary example of public law is the constitution of
a particular jurisdiction. This defines the various wings of the government, the ambit of their
powers and the limitations of the same. This resultantly defines the interaction between the
various wings of the government with the individuals who are subjected to the laws of the same.

2LAW IN CONTEMPORARY NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY
These individuals comprise of the subscribed citizenship of the jurisdiction. It is noteworthy to
mention here that, from the very beginning, the rights and duties defined in the constitution are
only available to/applicable on the citizens of the jurisdiction. Another example of public law are
the penal laws and ancillary criminal legislations which define the criminal law within the
jurisdiction (Loveland 2018). In New Zealand, the Crimes Act, 1961 defines criminal law and
prescribes punishments for criminal activities (McKinnon 2013). This thus embodies the
sovereign’s directives relating to what is considered as deviant behavior resultantly defining the
relationship between the social conformity and the citizens. Penal law in a jurisdiction is largely
based on a deterrent approach to ensure a low percentage of deviance and aims at eliminating all
forms of deviance as a whole. This is how the penal law of a state ensures conformity and the
gist of its interaction with the individuals subject to it within a particular jurisdiction. New
Zealand also prescribes the deterrent approach and aims at the same through the framework of its
penal system. Apart from constitutional law and criminal law there are various other legal
mechanisms which regulate the relationship between the state and the citizens such as taxation
laws.
Private law
Private law primarily defines rights and obligations between people and laws that define
the relationship between individuals. Quintessentially private law encompasses law regulating
duties of individuals. It may be a contractual relationship or property being passed down from
one person to another all laws that regulate such rights would form a part of private of that
jurisdiction. These laws are also known as civil laws. The Contract and Commercial Law Act,
2017 is a new legislation which defines and regulates contractual relationships within the Realm