In which the author seeks to have the New Zealand legal community do his job for him.
I've been asked by a colleague at an overseas law school to contribute to a special issue of their journal. The topic for the issue is: "The worst decision by a nation's top court of the last 25 years."
As the Kiwi representative, I'm expected to give a response to that prompt in relation to New Zealand jurisprudence. But I thought I'd throw it over to the knowledgable and opinionated readers of this site to crowdsource their wisdom (or, at least, pick up some suggestions of avenues that might be worth chasing down).
So - in the comments below, what do you think our top court's worst decision has been in the last quarter century, and what makes it so bad? I'll be interested to see if there's any sort of consensus on this question, in the same way as US lawyers virtually all agree Dred Scott, Lochner, Plessy and Korematsu were bad. I'll also be interested in what people think makes a "bad" court decision in the first place - is it the reasoning (or lack of), or the consequences, or something else instead?
There we go - have at it. I'm far too busy with the NFL play-offs to be thinking about this sort of nonsense for myself.
(PS: If there's anyone out there who feels a bit cautious about climbing into the Supreme Court in a semi-public forum, you can drop me your private thoughts on my (munged) email: andrew.geddis-at-otago.ac.nz.)