People Against Prisons Aotearoa

Abolitionist Demand 11: Institute tikanga Māori.

This is a part of No Pride in Prisons’ Abolitionist demands. These demands were originally published as a book. To see a pdf of the book, click here. To buy a copy, please email info@noprideinprisons.org.nz

Tikanga Māori were the first legal systems in Aotearoa.^[1] For centuries both interpersonal and political relationships were mediated by and through tikanga. It is not enough to integrate some of the principles of tikanga Māori into the colonial legal system. Tikanga Māori are not a collection of adornments to be added, when deemed convenient, to a legal system otherwise wholly dictated by the coloniser. Tikanga Māori are a means for realising the rights of Māori to sovereign independence, “inherent to [their] status as tangata whenua… reaffirmed in both the 1835 Declaration of Independence and the 1840 Tiriti o Waitangi preservation of tino rangatiratanga.”^[2]

The imposition of a settler-colonial government required the annihilation of tikanga Māori as a set of varying legal systems and their replacement with colonial law. The uncritical acceptance of colonial law as the only legitimate law justifies the existence of a settler state premised on violence.^[3] Tikanga Māori present a set of organisational principles which both affirm Māori collective rights and make colonisation comprehensible as hara – a transgression, a trampling of mana, a departure from equilibrium which calls for rectification. No Pride in Prisons affirms that the institution of tikanga Māori and the decolonisation of Aotearoa are the only acceptable rectifications of this hara.

Tikanga Māori prioritise relationships and whānaungatanga when dealing with conflict resolution. The New Zealand Police, by contrast, uses violence and force to punish those suspected of perpetrating social harm. Policing is built on punitive, carceral politics that merely funnel human beings, overwhelmingly Māori, into the court and prison systems.^[4] In the process, it shreds up the tukutuku of relationships between community members, and tears people out of their social contexts. Tikanga Māori call for us to be accountable to one another and to ourselves for the ways in which we act, so that social equilibrium can be restored.^[5] A police force, empowered to harass, detain, and remove people from their families, is entirely at odds with this principle. The Police acts with no meaningful accountability to the communities it terrorises, with the only independent body investigating complaints against police severely underfunded and investigating only 63% of complaints it receives. This is an unresolvable contradiction with tikanga Māori.

The New Zealand Police whakapapa back to the Armed Constabulary Force, the military arm of the occupying British and New Zealand governments.^[6] Its purpose has always been the suppression of tino rangatiratanga. Through a succession of name changes and nominal policy changes, this military force has continued to be responsible for maintaining the New Zealand state’s sovereignty on unceded Māori land, under the name ‘the New Zealand Police.’ The police was, is, and will remain the armed enforcer of colonialism in Aotearoa.^[7]Only through the defunding, disarming and disbanding of the New Zealand Police can tikanga Māori be implemented.^[8]

^[1] Ani Mikaere, “Three (Million) Strikes and Still Not Out: The Crown as the Consummate Recidivist,” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2011).

^[2]  Ani Mikaere, “Collective Rights and Gender Issues: A Māori Woman’s Perspective,” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2011), 218.

^[3] Ani Mikaere, “How Will Future Generations Judge Us? Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Crown Law and Tikanga Māori” in He Rukuruku Whakaaro: Colonising Myths, Māori Realities (Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2011), 315.

^[4] Australian Associated Press, “UN Voices Concern About Over-representation of Maori in Prisons,” The Guardian, 17 May 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/17/un-makes-13-recommendations-to-improve-human-rights-in-new-zealand.

^[5] Hirini M. Mead, Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values (Wellington, N.Z.: Huia, 2003), 27.

^[6] New Zealand Police, “The Establishment of New Zealand Police,” New Zealand Police, 3 April 2016. http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/history/establishment.

^[7] See demand 48.

^[8] For further analysis of the role of tikanga Māori in the abolition of the Criminal Injustice System, see demands 27, 48, and 49.