Research Projects
Victoria University's Faculty of Law has four major research projects in varying stages of development:
- The Lost Cases Project
- The Legal Maori Project
- The NZ Law and Literature Database
- The Regulatory Reform Project
- The Urgency Project
- Modification of the Pre-Trial and Trial Processes for Sexual Offences
The Lost Cases Project
This is a systematic search and collation of early New Zealand cases which is primarily concerned with Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions from 1841-1883 and which have shaped New Zealand law.
These cases exist in manuscript collections, archives, judges' notebooks and libraries, not in published form. Some are in danger of turning to dust.
Professor Emeritus Bruce Kercher of Macquarie University says of the Lost Cases website: "It is more than a gift to the law and history of New Zealand. It is another great step towards the history of the British legal empire."
The Legal Maori Project
This is a four-stage project which will enable speakers of te reo Maori to use Maori vocabulary to describe Western legal concepts.
The stages include the gathering and accessing any texts in Māori from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries about any legal topic; seeing where gaps exist and what new terms might need to be made; the compilation of the dictionary and putting it together in a useable form and the creation of Legal Māori Archive, which contains digitalised legal Māori texts from the 19th century which are publicly available and searchable.
The Dean of Law, Professor Tony Smith, says of the Legal Maori Project: "This work is of importance to New Zealand, to Maori speakers and to the University. Its potential impact is great. It will, in short, allow a Maori voice in a legal context in a way never before possible."
The NZ Law and Literature Database
This is an exploration of the nature of legal references in New Zealand fictional literature and visual media.
It is of interest to academics, students, lawyers, writers and members of the pubic with an interest in fiction and/or law.
The database offers researchers the opportunity to examine the key legal themes and issues that appear in New Zealand and discover popular perceptions of law.
The database website contains an annotated bibliographic reference for each of the approximately 500 sources (novels, plays, poems, short stories, films and television programmes.)
The Regulatory Reform Project
The New Zealand Law Foundation Regulatory Reform Project (LFRRP) looks at the key aspects of New Zealand's regulatory regime and analyses both whether these areas of regulation serve New Zealand well and how they might be improved.
Regulation, whatever its shape or form, is integral to all New Zealanders whether they are in business or consumers. Badly designed and poorly implemented regulation can cost the taxpayer millions, as evidenced by the leaky homes issue. Implementing and enforcing good regulation can be expensive, but is often worth the investment.
This $1.75 million research project, led by Victoria University and funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation, aims to get regulation right for New Zealand.
The Urgency Project
The Urgency Project is a joint project of the NZ Centre for Public Law and the Rule of Law Committee of the NZ Law Society. It has been generously funded by the NZ Law Foundation. The project researchers (Claudia Geiringer, Polly Higbee and Elizabeth McLeay) have been examining the use of urgency in the NZ House of Representatives over a 24 year period - from 1987-2010. In addition to collating comprehensive databases that detail every use of urgency over that period, the researchers also conducted interviews with a number of current and former politicians and senior parliamentary officials. Questions the project aims to answer include: 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? What can be done about it?
Modification of the Pre-Trial and Trial Processes for Sexual Offences
Sexual offending is a notoriously difficult area of law. Despite reforms over many decades, the evidence continues to show stubbornly unchanged prosecution rates for sexual offences and victim dissatisfaction with the system.
The New Zealand Law Foundation funded the project, which examines overseas and local experience in order to propose alternatives to the current system. The study will be drawn on by the Law Commission in its work, sought by Justice Minister Simon Power, on whether inquisitorial procedures should be applied in New Zealand.