The Supreme Court of New Zealand () is the highest court and the court of last resort of New Zealand. It formally came into being on 1 January 2004 and sat for the first time on 1 July 2004. It replaced the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, based in London. It was created with the passing of the Supreme Court Act 2003, on 15 October 2003. At the time, the creation of the Supreme Court and the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council were controversial constitutional changes in New Zealand. The Supreme Court Act 2003 was repealed on 1 March 2017 and superseded by the Senior Courts Act 2016.
The current Supreme Court should not be confused with the High Court of New Zealand, which was known as the Supreme Court until 1980. The High Court, New Zealand's superior court, was established in 1841 as the “Supreme Court of New Zealand”. Its name was changed in anticipation of the eventual creation of this final court of appeal within New Zealand.
Composition
The inaugural members of the Supreme Court comprised the chief justice, Dame Sian Elias, together with the four most senior judges of the New Zealand Court of Appeal at the time: Justices Gault, Keith, Blanchard and Tipping. The maximum number of permanent Judges of the Supreme Court was initially five, but increased to six in 2005 with the appointment of then Court of Appeal judge Sir John McGrath. On 21 February 2006, the Honourable Sir Noel Anderson (at the time President of the Court of Appeal) was appointed to the Supreme Court, continuing the practice of appointing the next most senior Court of Appeal judge.
Several acting judges have been appointed since the Supreme Court began. These judges were initially appointed from the ranks of retired judges of the Court of Appeal and included Justices Sir John Henry, Sir Ted Thomas, former President of the Court of Appeal Sir Ivor Richardson and former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum. More recent practice has been for retired Supreme Court Judges to be appointed as Acting Judges. Acting judges can only sit on substantive appeals, as the Senior Courts Act requires at least two permanent members of the Court to determine applications for leave. The Chief Justice can also second a Court of Appeal judge to the Supreme Court for one or more particular appeals.
Eligibility to be a justice of the Supreme Court
An existing judge can only be appointed a Supreme Court justice if already a member of the Court of Appeal or the High Court. If the person is not a member of either of those courts, the candidate must be appointed as a High Court judge at the same time as taking office in the Supreme Court.
A Judge of the Supreme Court continues as a Judge of the High Court in a technical sense, but ceases to be a Judge of the Court of Appeal if they were a member of that court.
A judge of one of the seniors courts in New Zealand must retire on attaining the age of 70 years but is eligible for appointment as an Acting Judge up until the age of 75.
Creation
While the suggestion of ending appeals to the Privy Council had been around since the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, proposals to end appeals to the Privy Council began in the late 1970s, when a Royal Commission on the judiciary canvassed arguments for replacing the Privy Council. In the early 1980s, Minister of Justice Jim McLay suggested their abolition. Proposals for an indigenous final appellate court can be traced back to 1985. In 1996, Attorney-General Paul East proposed to end the status of the Privy Council as the country's highest court of appeal. The proposal got as far as a bill being introduced into Parliament. However, this bill met with little support from within the National Party, and the bill was not carried over by the next Parliament following the 1996 general election.
A year later a Ministerial Action Group was formed to assist Ministers in designing the purpose, structure and make-up of a final court of appeal. The Group's report, Replacing the Privy Council: A New Supreme Court was published in April 2002, before the general election a few months later.
Margaret Wilson argued in favour of the bill, stating: