News
On this page:
- Law Alumna Wins Ethel Benjamin Scholarship
- New law courses
- Te Kauwae Paraoa is open
- The Court Report is back
- Law School team wins prize in Hong Kong
- Regulatory Reform Book launched
- Professor Andrew Ashworth to visit
- New Year, new book
- On Top of the World
- Three outstanding alumni
- We are honoured
- Authors Question Focus on Rape Jail Terms
- A legal first with Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
Law Alumna Wins Ethel Benjamin Scholarship
14 May 2012
Amelia Keene.
The scholarship is worth $50,000 and with it, Amelia plans to study fresh water regulation at an LLM course at Columbia University in New York.
Currently a solicitor at Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young in Wellington, Amelia was clerk for the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice O’Regan, after being admitted to the bar in 2010. Before that, she gained a First Class Honours degree in law from Victoria, along with a BA in History and Philosophy.
She was President of the Law Students’ Society in 2009.
Her research paper will compare regulatory models of fresh water management in New Zealand and the United States, focusing on environmental federalism.
Amelia says the award allows her to pursue an interest she feels very strongly about.
“I haven’t had the chance to do a lot of environmental law thus far, so this gives me the opportunity to develop a specialisation…it has come at exactly the right time,” she says.
The Ethel Benjamin scholarship honours New Zealand’s first woman barrister and solicitor, who was admitted to the bar in 1897. Since the centenary of this event, the Law Foundation has awarded this scholarship annually to outstanding New Zealand women law graduates for post-graduate study.
New law courses
23 April 2012
Two new law courses are being offered in the summer trimester before Christmas.
LAWS 325 Advanced Environmental Law
LAWS 343 International Human Rights
See the Course Catalogue for a list of all summer trimester law courses.
You may add courses online through student records or contact Sharon Watkins, Undergraduate AdministratorTe Kauwae Paraoa is open
16 March 2012
Pictured: PVC (Maori) Professor Piri Sciascia and Dean of Law, Professor Tony Smith, observe one of the celebratory dances at the opening.
Te Kauwae Parāoa was successfully launched at the Law Library recently.
The space is for use by all students and is designed to be particularly welcoming and inspiring for students with Māori or Pacific heritage.
The opening of the room started with a Dawn Ceremony and was continued with a lunch time event.
The name means “the whale’s jawbone” and symbolises the pursuit of knowledge and the responsibilities of those who hold the knowledge.
The Court Report is back
16 March 2012
Filming of the Court Report in 2011.
The popular TVNZ7 law programme, The Court Report, is back for another season.
It is filmed at Victoria’s Law School and students, academic staff and law practitioners are invited to attend recording sessions on Tuesdays at 6.30pm in Lecture Theatre 2, (the Stout Street entrance). The first programme recording is March 20.
Victoria law alumna Linda Clark replaces Greg King as presenter this season, as he is on an Eisenhower Scholarship in the US.
Law School team wins prize in Hong Kong
16 March 2012
All the participants, coaches and judges in front of the High Court in Hong Kong (second row from left: Alberto Costi, Marin van Hove, Ella Watt, Zoe Halliday and Joanna Mossop).
A Victoria University Law School mooting team has won a prize at the 10th Annual Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Moot (an Inter-University Competition for the Asia-Pacific Region) in Hong Kong.
The team was Marin Van Hove and Ella Watt (oralists) and Zoe Halliday (researcher). The team won the prize for Best Memorial (second time in three years that the Law School has won the top prize for the written memorial) and reached the semi-finals, losing to the eventual winners of the competition, the University of Hong Kong.
Alberto Costi and Joanna Mossop, who shared coaching duties and devoted time and energy to prepare the team for the competition, accompanied the students to Hong Kong. Their colleagues (Tony Angelo, Petra Butler, Kevin Riordan and Rayner Thwaites) helped prepare the team.
The competition featured 20 teams from the Asia-Pacific region representing either the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court or the Defendant, each arguing twice in a preliminary round, with three teams representing the Prosecutor and three teams acting for the Defence participating in the semi-finals.
Regulatory Reform Book launched
13 March 2012
From left to right: Professor John Burrows (Chair, NZ Law Foundation), Professor Susy Frankel (Project Leader) and Lynda Hagen (Executive Director, NZ Law Foundation)
The $1.75 million NZ Law Foundation Regulatory Reform Project has launched its first book, Learning from the Past, Adapting for the Future: Regulatory Reform in New Zealand.
This hefty legal research project was initiated by the NZ Law Foundation and is led by an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional team from Victoria University, Chapman Tripp and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. The aim of the research is to provide a toolkit to improve regulatory outcomes for New Zealand.
“If New Zealand wants better regulation for the future,” says Project Leader, Professor Susy Frankel, “part of achieving that goal involves learning from past successes and failures. One example of the latter is the leaky homes debacle, which has cost the taxpayer millions of dollars. New regulation is often created, or the old changed, without a full analysis of what went wrong or a proper identification of the problem that regulation might be able to address and what the regulation is supposed to achieve.”
The book is a series of papers that draw extensively on New Zealand’s regulatory experience and posing questions to frame and develop the ongoing research of the team.
Professor Andrew Ashworth to visit
20 February 2012
Professor Andrew Ashworth.
Andrew Ashworth, the 2012 NZ Law Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow, will be a visitor to the Faculty from 4 – 10 March.
He will be giving a public lecture “Negotiating the Fundamental Right to Personal Liberty: Four Problem Cases” on March 8 in GB LT1, 5.30 to 6.30.
Professor Ashworth is the Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, a post he has held since 1997. He is also a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a member of the of the Centre for Criminology.
New Year, new book
20 February 2012
From left: Executive Directive of the NZ Law Foundation, Lynda Hagen, with authors Polly Higbee, Claudia Geiringer and Elizabeth McLeay
2012 started with the launch of the book What’s the Hurry? Urgency in the NZ Legislative Process 1987-2010 (VUP, Wellington, 2011).
It is the result of a major research project at Victoria University’s Faculty of Law and was funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation.
The Project researchers (Claudia Geiringer, Polly Higbee and Professor Elizabeth McLeay) examined the use of urgency in the New Zealand House of Representatives over a 24-year period – from 1987-2010.
Questions the Project addressed included: what exactly is urgency and why do politicians use it? How much is it used? What factors constrain its use? In particular, to what extent has MMP had an effect on the use of urgency? Why, if at all, should we be worried about urgency, and in what circumstances? How robust is the regulatory framework that governs the use of urgency? Should it be amended and, if so, how?
On Top of the World
31 January 2012
Law students Sebastian Templeton and Richard D'Ath capped an extraordinarily successful year of debating in 2011 by taking on the world - and winning.
Just before Christmas, the pair took top honours at the World Universities Peace Invitational Debate in Malaysia, beating Oxford, Cambridge and Ateneo de Manila universities in the final. Each year top debaters from 30 international universities are invited to take part in this prestigious competition in the lead-up to Christmas.
"This results shows Seb and Richard are at the top of their game, and on top of the world", says Dean of Law, Professor Tony Smith. "We congratulate them both and wish them well for their next challenges."
Earlier in 2011 the Victoria Debating team won the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championship title in South Korea, and took out the New Zealand competition the Joynt Scroll for a sixth consecutive year.
The team will now head to Manila, where 1,400 participants from more than 70 nations are expected to compete in the World Debating Championship.
Three outstanding alumni
31 January 2012
The deaths of Sir Maurice Casey, George Tanner QC and Helen Aikman QC, are a cause for sadness and reflection.
All three made a magnificent contribution to the law and were true supporters of this Faculty.
Sir Maurice Casey was a judge of the Court of Appeal; George Tanner was Chief Parliamentary Counsel for 11 years and subsequently a Law Commissioner; and Helen Aikman's career spanned the Law Commission, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and Crown Law, amongst other things.
They will be missed.
We are honoured
31 January 2012
Professor Tony Angelo.
We are honoured The faculty takes great pride and pleasure in the recognition given to Professor Tony Angelo in the New Year’s Honours list.
Professor Angelo was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to legal education.
His range of intellectual interests is wide and he has made a singular contribution to the legal systems of the Pacific region, the Islands in particular.
Authors Question Focus on Rape Jail Terms
10 January 2012
From left: Associate Professor and co-author, Dr Yvette Tinsley; Survivor Advocate, Rape Prevention Education, Louise Nicholas; Director of Rape Prevention Education, Kim McGregor; and Associate Professor and co-author, Elisabeth McDonald.
The results of two years of research, supported by the New Zealand Law Foundation, into changes to pre-trial and trial processes in cases of sexual offending is being launched at Victoria University’s Faculty of Law today, with the publication of From "Real Rape" to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand.
Principal researchers Elisabeth McDonald, Associate Professor of Law, Victoria University of Wellington; Yvette Tinsley, Reader of Law, Victoria University of Wellington; and Jeremy Finn, Professor of Law, University of Canterbury, analysed published material from 20 jurisdictions to inform their recommendations. They consulted with criminal justice professionals, academics and those who work with victims of sexual offending; and undertook an "on the ground" examination of the dynamics of investigation and trial in five civil law jurisdictions.
"Rather than advocating for a simple wholesale move to an "inquisitorial" model, we see a need for a range of responses to sexual offending," says Associate Professor McDonald.
The range of responses advocated includes: a form of restorative justice being available for appropriate cases (including situations where there has been no guilty plea nor any involvement of the police); a version of the treatment court model for appropriate cases, which would emphasise the importance of preventing future offending as part of the resolution process; the improvement of risk assessment processes in cases of offending committed against children in order to prevent future harm; and the need for increased public awareness education regarding sexual offending, including misconceptions, prevention and sentencing levels.
"There are a range of improvements that can be made to the traditional trial process and one of our recommendations is the availability of a support person at the point at which a victim makes contact with any relevant agency," says Associate Professor McDonald.
The support person would provide advice and assistance through any resolution process the victim wishes to follow.
Other recommendations include: changes to existing rules of evidence, use of pre-trial cross-examination where fast tracking of sexual cases is not possible; specialisation of judges, prosecutors, police and defence counsel involved in sexual violence cases; the implementation of monitoring and advisory bodies to disseminate good practice; education for those working within the criminal process; and consideration of changing the decision-maker in sexual cases – including the replacement of the jury with "lay assessors" in the civil law model.
"We hope the implementation of this range of responses will deliver appropriate and just outcomes to all victims of sexual offending, not only those who have been subject to so-called 'real rape' – that is, the paradigmatic crime committed by a stranger in a dark alley," says Associate Professor McDonald.
"This type of sexual offending is relatively uncommon but it is the type that is most likely to be resolved satisfactorily from the victim’s perspective."
"We found the focus on lengthy sentences of imprisonment for all offenders of sexual violence prevents meaningful exploration of alternative processes for resolving (and reducing) this type of criminal conduct," says Yvette Tinsley.
"It is not the case that all victims wish the offender to be imprisoned—especially when they have an ongoing relationship—and this may actually prevent victims reporting abuse. Further, there is very little incentive for offenders to admit the offending, apologise for their behaviour, and promise not to re-offend (even if this may be all the victim wants) when doing so risks them being imprisoned for six years or more."
The study's conclusions have been published by Victoria University Press: Elisabeth McDonald and Yvette Tinsley (eds) From 'Real Rape' to Real Justice: Prosecuting Rape in New Zealand (VUP, Wellington, 2011).
A legal first with Rutherford Discovery Fellowship
8 December 2011
A Senior Lecturer at the Faculty is the first legal academic to be the recipient of a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.
Dr Nicole Moreham is putting the scholarship money towards the writing of a book setting out the protection of privacy in private law. The book addresses four central questions: what is privacy, why is it worthy of protection, how is it currently protected in the law, and what further developments are needed to create a comprehensive, coherent legal privacy right which sits appropriately with competing interests?
“The past two decades have seen an explosion in technology making it easier than ever before to obtain, store, and disseminate private material about a person against his or her wishes,” says Dr Moreham.
“The perennial tension between individual privacy rights and the media’s need to obtain and publish the news also continues to be negotiated."
Dr Moreham’s book will question how the law should respond to these, and other, privacy issues both in New Zealand and overseas.