The untimely passing of Act’s candidate for the Port Waikato electorate throws an unexpected spanner into the 2023 election machinery. Maybe it’s time to think about how the law responds to such events?

The protest at Parliament reveals something of the gap between our laws’ thought and expression. And it requires a decision as to how far we will accommodate those who stand outside our world.

National’s Shadow Attorney General thinks that the impending repeal of the three strikes law reveals a government in thrall to an overreaching judiciary. Is he right about that?

Why don’t we just change our laws to make it easier to send people like the Auckland terrorist back to where they came from? Well, it may not actually be that easy.

Police action to enforce lockdown rules is necessary. Police enforcement of uncertain rules can be overzealous. Both of these things can be true at once.

Sittings in the House of Representatives have been suspended for a week. Whether our government’s actions can still be properly scrutinised largely depends on whether backbench Labour MPs can set aside their party loyalty.

There’s an existing legal power to make people self-isolate. Failing to comply with such a requirement can attract reasonably severe sanctions. Why, then, do we not start hanging some more admirals pour encourager les autres?

Disappointed supporters of legalising cannabis are asking the High Court to void the recent referendum result. They aren’t going to succeed, and probably shouldn’t even try to do so.

Labour doesn’t need the Greens to govern. But if they think they want them around, what sort of arrangement might the two parties form?

Why is it that someone magically is “old enough” to vote at 18, but not at 16? That’s something the High Court will have to consider over the next week.

The High Court has found New Zealand’s original level 4 and 3 lockdown was mostly legal - and the bits of it that weren’t really don’t matter that much. You could tell that was coming from the opening sentence of its decision.

The resurgence of COVID-19 raises real questions as to whether the September 19 election date will need to be changed. If it does, how can that happen?

In its last hours before ending for the election, our Parliament finally repealed Part 4A of the Public Health and Disability Act 2000. That might sound boring, but it actually matters quite a lot.

Daniel Clinton Fitzgerald has been in jail for three-and-a-half years. The Court of Appeal has just ruled he must stay there, perhaps for as long as another three-and-a-half years. All because … he kissed a woman on the street without her permission.

It’s a shame that last night’s passage of the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Bill got overshadowed by parliamentary shenanigans. But let’s pause and note what it all means, anyway.

The rebranding of the Government’s “Unite Against COVID-19” campaign into “Unite for the Recovery” is probably unfair to the opposition. Does that matter, and what could be done about it?

One way of examining the government’s actions in response to COVID-19 – by no means the most important way, but still of moment – is through a legal lens. Where are we at with that examination?

The Ministry of Health proposed closing New Zealand’s borders to returning New Zealand citizens. It really shouldn’t have done that.

We’re over a week into Level Four lockdown. The Government has just told us more precisely what that means for our daily lives.

We have handed over extraordinary powers to state officials to keep us safe. But if that is going to work, and to be tolerable for us over the weeks and months to come, we really need to know quite clearly just what it is that we need to do and why.