Kings Counsels just Snuffed NZ's Economy by declaring Sovereignty actually lies with their Judge Mates.

What do the partners in the City law firms earn in NZ? Reputedly incomes way over a million dollars a year. A bunch of them took the wage subsidy, even though business boomed for many of their firms during the lock-downs as they were called upon to sort out disputes, like who should pay the rent on commercial buildings. They never disclosed their incomes, since partnerships don't have to disclose their accounts publicly. They hid behind a wall of silence. Most only returned the subsidy after Sir Roger Douglas and myself called them out in the Media. You can read the story here. Many repaid the day after we put them on the front page news - not before. Lawyers dominate our boardrooms, even though most have no industry specific knowledge - whether its the Big Banks, Kiwi Rail, or Fletchers. You name a monopoly in NZ and you will likely find the boardroom stacked with lawyers. Its a proper old boys & old girls club. Chapman Tripp threatened Auckland University with defamation unless it took down an article written by a colleague of mine about Foodstuff's monopoly powers. Lawyers, more than any other group, are putting up the cost of living in NZ.

Now the Kings Counsels have written a letter saying that much of the Constitution of this country is only entitled to be written by judges - no-one else is allowed to tell us what are the "principles" behind the Treaty - even though most Kiwis don't believe such principles even exist. Forget Māori having a say in the matter. Forget Parliament. Let alone plumbers, shop-keepers, doctors, nurses, builders, teachers, or engineers. None of us count. Why has the letter that Kings Counsels wrote to the PM, quoted in Parliament by MP Willie Jackson, gone & wrecked the Kiwi economy? Because it has thrown into chaos the security & clarity of our property rights, and as this year's Economics Nobel Prize reminded us, it is that security & clarity that determines long run productivity growth. My advice to investors, domestic or foreign, is to not invest in NZ. Why? Since a bunch of self-interested lawyers and their judge mates now run the show in this country. They're playing those who identify as Māori off against those identifying as non-Māori, all for their fee income. Wait until the big law firms bleed the Iwi Trusts dry, since those firms thrive on disputes & now have whole departments set up to "advise" the Trusts. It is judges who are writing the legal principles which now govern the economic incentives faced by all of us - that affect the opportunities of our children. How hard to work as a student is now dictated by NZ's legal profession - since university places and jobs have come to be decided on how much applicants align with the chosen constitutional "principles" our judges have decided upon.

New Zealand's legal profession has got too big for its boots. The Kings Counsels who wrote to PM Luxon should disclose their incomes, since they have entered the political arena, and in that arena you must disclose your finances so people can work out your conflicts of interest. What did the Counsels earn during Covid, when the rest of the country suffered? How much have they siphoned off the Māori economy as fee income? Go on, tell us. Of course you wont. You will just go and slink back into the darkness & leave none of us not knowing where you are coming from.

NZ's King's Counsels Don't Know Constitutional Law

In a letter addressed to the PM regarding ACT's Treaty Principles Bill, NZ King’s Counsels succeeded in one respect. They showed they don't know constitutional law. When it comes to such matters, the job of the Courts is strictly to interpret constitutions, not re-write them. Yet that is what NZ's KCs have advocated. Although the word "principles" never appeared in the Treaty, nor was defined by Parliament, the Counsels assert the Courts constitute the only authority in NZ with powers to make them up. Even though the Treaty signatories on both sides never referred to such matters, judges over the past years, most of them illiterate in the sense of being unable to speak, read or write Te Reo Māori, so with little sense of the Māori version, have nonetheless been self-declared by their peers as validly inventing & writing a set of Principles. They claim these now form a significant chunk of our Constitution.

Extraordinarily, the Kings Counsels assert that NZ governments, like the one Seymour co-leads, lack authority to "rewrite" any Treaty Principles, since, they argue, that constitutes rewriting the Treaty. But those same Counsels are perfectly content with the Courts having those same powers. They argue our Courts, entirely independently of the Treaty signatories, have already "developed" their own set of Principles, which now "represent settled law". That assertion is far more insulting to Māori than to non-Māori. At least the Treaty was a jointly signed document - but the Principles were written down over a century later by a group of Anglophile NZ judges, with British educated legal minds. Take one of them, Lord Robin Cooke. His eulogy reads, "Lord Cooke was entirely at home at Westminster in the House of Lords, in Cambridge or Oxford, at Inner Temple and in the members' pavilion at Lords .. he was a monarchist, counting it a privilege to be one of Her Majesty's judges".

Are these my views? Not really. I'd argue they were much closer to those of one of ACT Leader David Seymour' most vociferous critics, Treaty scholar, Dame Anne Salmond. She declares, "What do the relationships forged in 1840 mean for contemporary constitutional arrangements in NZ? That’s the puzzle at the heart of Te Tiriti". However, it appears that for New Zealand's Kings Counsels there is no such puzzle. They have already "settled" the matter in law. How ironic for a group of pompous puffed-up lawyers bearing the title "King" to lecture Parliament and the people, telling us how they've got it all sorted; how the courts have already written our Constitution all by their little selves.

Sources:

https://www.chrislynchmedia.com/news-items/kings-counsel-call-on-government-to-withdraw-proposed-treaty-principles-bill-citing-constitutional-concerns/

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/anne-salmond-iwi-kiwi-and-te-tiriti/ar-AA1sVAMR