People Against Prisons Aotearoa

Abolitionist Demand 25: Close the New Zealand court system.

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

The court system was implemented in Aotearoa as a tool of British colonial control. As Khylee Quince, law lecturer at the University of Auckland, notes, “once the land was acquired, it was imperative for the new government to bring Māori under the legal control of the new colony.”^[1] Implementing the court system was instrumental to this process.

However, this was not just an historical process, as today the court system is a tool through which tangata whenua continue to be oppressed. In 2015, of the 63,746 total convictions handed down by the New Zealand Courts, 25,699 were handed down to Māori.^[2] That means that Māori receive 40.31% of all criminal convictions, despite being only 15% of the total population. In 2014, for the first time since data exists (1980), Māori surpassed Pākehā for the total number of convictions.^[3] Once convicted, Māori are also much more likely to be sentenced to imprisonment. Of the 7,232 sentences of imprisonment, Māori received 4,017 or 55.55% in 2015.^[4] As has been demonstrated throughout these demands, both a conviction and imprisonment have seriously negative impacts on the lives of those affected.^[5] As it occurs on such a racialised basis, it must also be viewed as a form of racist, colonising oppression.

The court system also plays an important role in reproducing the capitalist mode of production. The court system is responsible for the maintenance of laws that uphold the right to private property at the expense of the rights to life, food, shelter, and dignity. For example, a coal executive is able to earn millions of dollars in salaries, bonuses, dividends, and capital appreciation, while employing others to do all the work mining, transporting, and refining the coal. The executive can require increased production and productivity from the workers, putting their bodies at risk. When a worker dies, as happened in 2010 to 29 workers at the Pike River Mine, the director is rarely held to account and can continue to extract value from the bodies of workers.^[6] On the other hand, a person stealing food, or the private property of another, can receive a prison sentence.^[7] At the core, the very purpose of the court system is to ensure that a small number of people can extract increasing amounts of wealth from workers and to stop any attempt to radically redistribute wealth and reorganise social conditions.

Beyond the court’s role as a supporting block for settler colonial capitalism, the court also fundamentally fails to administer justice. The New Zealand criminal court system addresses social harm, both real and imagined, through punishment and social control. Even where a non-custodial sentence is imposed, a criminal conviction itself, a record that a person has ‘done wrong,’ can make finding employment more difficult and place restrictions on travel.^[8] Where a person is sentenced to imprisonment, all the evidence suggests that that person will not be ‘corrected’ as a result but will still have to go through the horrors of the prison.^[9] In order for meaningful justice to be carried out, a new social and economic system, and a justice system to go with it, are required.

The court system is an obstacle to the necessary revolution in economic and social conditions required to undo the injustices of our time. As a part of the decolonising anti-capitalist process, institutions that continue to enforce colonial capitalist frameworks, including the court system, need to be dismantled.

^[1] Khylee Quince, “Māori and the Criminal Justice System in New Zealand,” in Criminal Justice in New Zealand, eds. Julia Tolmie and Warren Brookbanks (New Zealand: LexisNexis, 2007), 9.

^[2] Statistics New Zealand, “Adults Convicted in Court by Sentence Type – Most Serious Offence Calendar Year,” Statistics New Zealand, 2 July 2016. http://nzdotstat.stats.govt.nz/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLECODE7353.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).

^[6] Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, “Commission’s report – Volume 1,” Royal Commission on the Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy, 30 October 2012. http://pikeriver.royalcommission.govt.nz/Volume-One—Contents#Memorial.

^[7] Citizens Advice Bureau, “Shoplifting,” Citizens Advice Bureau, 27 March 2016. http://www.cab.org.nz/vat/gl/le/Pages/Shoplifting.aspx.

^[8] YouthLaw Aotearoa, “Convictions,” YouthLaw Aotearoa, 22 January 2016. http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/information/police/convictions/.

^[9] JustSpeak, Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand’s Prison System, (Wellington: JustSpeak, 2014).