Magna Carta and the Kiwi constitution

As part of the University of Auckland’s week long public lecture series for the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta, this session looks back upon the roles of Magna Carta in New Zealand’s constitutional traditions and examines its present roles, both in law and in the constitutional imagination.
The Right Honourable Dame Elias is the 12th Chief Justice of New Zealand and the first woman to be appointed to that office. In 1988, Dame Sian was appointed a Queen’s Counsel. She appeared in a number of significant cases, including cases concerning the Treaty of Waitangi. On 17 May 1999, she was appointed Chief Justice of New Zealand and was made a Dame Grand Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. The Chief Justice was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1999 and first sat on the Privy Council in 2001. When in 2003 the Supreme Court Act established a final Court of Appeal in New Zealand, the Chief Justice became the head of the new Supreme Court.
Dr Lindsay Diggelmann's research focuses on the cultural history of Medieval and Early Modern Europe, the Anglo-Norman period (11th-12th centuries), the Crusades, and history of wmotions. His current project involves the study of attitudes to, and representations of, the ‘emotional’ nature of kingship in a variety of historical and fictional texts (chronicles, romances, troubadour lyric) c.1050-c.1250.
Judith Collins is a New Zealand politician and lawyer. She graduated in law and taxation and worked in this field from 1981 until 2002, including running her own practice for a decade. She entered Parliament in 2002 election as an electorate MP for the National Party, and became a Cabinet Minister when National entered Government in 2008. From 2008 until 2014 she held various ministerial roles, including Police, Corrections, Veterans’ Affairs, Justice, Accident Compensation, and Ethnic Affairs. with a fifth-placed ranking, she was the highest ranked woman in the Cabinet.
Chaired by Dr Jennifer Lees-Marshment and Dr Stephen Winter, Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland.