Party viewpoints on justice matters collected

The latest issue of the New Zealand Law Society’s LawTalk magazine presents the views of parties contesting the General Election on five important legal and justice issues.

LawTalk asked the 16 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission at 7 October for responses to five questions. Replies were received from 12 parties and these are reproduced in the latest issue.

The questions were as follows:

  • What are your party’s key objectives in the justice portfolio and how do you plan to meet these objectives?
  • What are your party’s policies in relation to the future of legal aid?
  • In this year’s World Justice Project rule of law index, New Zealand scored third in the world, ranking highly in most measures. A notable exception was that civil justice was subject to unreasonable delays. What policies does your party have to remedy this?
  • What are your party’s policies for the future of criminal law reform?
  • What are your party’s policies for the future of Family Courts and their operation?

Parties which responded to each question were Alliance, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, Conservative, Democrats for social credit, Green, Labour, Mana, Maori Party, National, New Zealand First, UnitedFuture. The ACT Party did not answer each question but provided a statement, which is reproduced.

A copy of the responses given by each of the parties is available here.

© New Zealand Law Society 2008