Funding makes continued research on Native Land Court possible
Professor Richard Boast has been awarded funding from the Law Foundation to support research for volume three of his series of edited judgments of the Native Land Court.
Professor Richard Boast has been awarded funding from the Law Foundation to support research for volume three of his series of edited judgments of the Native Land Court.
The Native Land Court holds great historical and cultural importance in New Zealand history, but its decisions have never been reported formally before with headnotes and commentary, says Professor Boast.
The third volume of the series will cover the period from 1909 to 1953 ending with the enactment of the Māori Affairs Act 1953, which brought in a number of important changes.
“It will include a number of important, and still unreported, decisions, including the Native Land Court decisions relating to Lake Waikaremoana, the Rotorua lakes, Mokoia Island, the ownership of the bed of the Whanganui River and various cases relating to ownership of the foreshore in Auckland and Northland,” says Professor Boast.
It will also include material on the Urewera consolidation schemes and on a large number of land blocks in the Tokaanu area.
Volume three, like the other two volumes, will include detailed case notes and a full introduction and commentary.
“A significant number of important cases have been located already and the task of transcribing the judgments—some of them very lengthy—is progressing well,” says Professor Boast.
He hopes the books will form a significant addition to New Zealand’s stock of reported case law dealing with Maori land issues.
“The first volume has already become a standard reference work and was cited extensively by the Supreme Court in an important recent case dealing with the ownership of the bed of the Waikato River.”
“This is part of an ongoing project which in turn originated from the Lost Cases research project of a few years ago.”
Professor Boast says he is grateful to the Law Foundation for its generous support of his project, which also has the support of the judges of the current Maori Land Court.
Volume one of the series, published in 2013, covers the period from 1862 to 1886. Volume two—which runs from 1887-1909—and will be published in May. All three volumes are published by Thompson Reuters/Brookers, and include maps and photographs as well as the introduction and the edited cases.