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MacKinnon, Jacquelin --- "Editor's Introduction" [2000] NZYbkNZJur 1; (2000) 4 Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence v

Last Updated: 11 April 2015

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence is an annual collection of papers contributed by participants in the Staff Seminar Series of the University of Waikato School of Law and is published in conjunction with the Centre for New Zealand Jurisprudence. The School of Law was founded in 1991 to provide a professional legal education, develop a bicultural approach to legal education and to teach law in the contexts in which it is made and applied. The Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence aims to stimulate and contribute to the development of New Zealand jurisprudence by publishing articles, essays and other forms of analysis and comment which directly address or are relevant to New Zealand jurisprudence. The articles contained in this issue are from both permanent and visiting scholars. The areas of law covered by these articles are diverse, however each addresses the achievement of "justice" in different contexts.

Paul Havemann examines peace building between Indigenous peoples, the dominant settler polities and the Crown within a reconciliatory justice paradigm and surveys some recent steps towards building peace with Indigenous peoples in Australia, Canada and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Marianne Nielsen brings further important insights from the Canadian perspective. She examines the work of the Aboriginal Youth Justice Committees in Alberta, Canada in the context of Aboriginal young people's experiences with the Canadian criminal justice system. These Committees operate within a restorative justice paradigm but without some of the constraints that tend to impede the development of other restorative justice programmes.

Can compensation provide justice for the wrongs of the past? This is the theme of Craig Coxhead's consideration of compensation for wrongful conviction in New Zealand, using as a case study the effect of current policy on the whanau (family) of the Whakatohea Chief, Mokomoko, who was executed in 1866 for the murder of a New Zealand Missionary and later pardoned.

Although he rejects affirmative action as a means of remedying past discrimination, Ken Mackinnon argues that law schools have a special obligation to consider the justness of university admissions. He uses the debate in the US as a basis for advocating a goal-based policy of affirmative action in New Zealand law schools.

Brenda Midson's article is also comparative, looking at how US and New Zealand case law has dealt with the issue of corroboration of recovered memories in criminal trials. She suggests that greater flexibility in assessing the admissibility of evidence will better ensure that justice is done in individual cases.

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The Editorial Committee is grateful to the referees to whom these articles were sent for their time and thoughtful contributions. They have done more than could be justly expected of them, while the administrative and secretarial support of Raewyn McGregor has been outstanding. Our thanks.

Jacquelin Mackinnon

Editor

Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence