Voting age judgment ‘intruding’ – Bishop
The Supreme Court’s voting age judgment intruded ‘‘into something that is fundamentally the realm of Parliament’’, says National MP Chris Bishop.
On Monday, the Supreme Court found the current voting age is unjustified discrimination, on the basis of age, under the Bill of Rights Act. It can’t make Parliament change law, but the Government is compelled to respond to the judgment, and it spurred an announcement by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern that the whole of the House would con- sider a proposal needing
75% support to lower the age.
National MP Chris Bishop said the Supreme Court ‘‘has overreached here by intruding into something that is fundamentally the realm of Parliament’’.
‘‘These are political decisions for the Parliament to decide. We have a Parliamentary Bill of Rights in this country. Parliament gets to decide on what the appropriate limits and intrusions on rights are and what the justification for those limits are,’’ Bishop said. He said he did not think the Supreme Court should have entered ‘‘into this realm’’ and should leave it to Parliament.
‘‘That’s actually interestingly the argument that the AttorneyGeneral made before the Supreme Court, that ultimately there’s a margin of appreciation here, this is something for the legislature to sort out, not the Supreme Court.
‘‘Now, the Supreme Court decided not to accept that argument. I respect that, although I disagree with it. Ultimately, Parliament will have its say here. We’re opposed to it.’’ National’s Chris Penk said the Supreme Court has to be ‘‘really careful that they don’t stray into answering essentially political questions or constitutional questions that are more properly answered by the people of New Zealand as a whole’’.
‘‘I think there’s some really interesting questions that are raised about their willingness to go into a space that, for example, the Court of Appeal wasn’t.’’
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman said the Supreme Court’s ‘‘entire role in this... is to tell us when rights are breached in individual cases, Parliament’s role is to pass legislation’’.
Attorney-General David Parker said he was surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision, but ‘‘that’s their right to make those decisions’’. ‘‘These are decisions for them not for me. I’m not criticising them. They’ve approached these issues independently.’’