This is a single section from Chapter 14. Read the full chapter here.

Will the secondary legislation be inconsistent with rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990?

Legislation should not empower secondary legislation that is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Secondary legislation that is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA) will generally be invalid because it falls outside the empowering provision. This is because an empowering provision will generally be interpreted, in accordance with section 6 of NZBORA, to empower only such secondary legislation as is consistent with NZBORA. The only circumstance in which secondary legislation might be valid despite inconsistency with NZBORA is if the empowering provision unequivocally, or by necessary implication, permits rights-infringing secondary legislation. In such a case, the empowering provision (and the secondary legislation it empowers) will prevail over NZBORA because of section 4 (which says that provisions inconsistent with NZBORA are not for that reason invalid or ineffective).

This page was last modified on