Indigenous Peoples and Family Law: Issues in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

This paper provides a glimpse into how historical and current legislation has attempted to grapple with the practice of customary family law by the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It focuses on examining family law in two contexts: marriage and property ownership; and children and legal parenthood. The analysis provides an interesting insight into the interplay between customary law and statute law. The impact of colonisation upon indigenous peoples and the practice of their law, and how governments today choose to recognise and provide for indigenous peoples is a policy issue prevalent in many of the British colonised lands. This paper concludes that a comprehensive review of the nature and extent to which legislation should provide for Maori customary law is required in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The haphazard approach of current years is insufficient.