3.5 MĀORI LAND COURT AND MĀORI APPELLATE COURT DECISIONS

Cite decisions of the Māori Land Court and the Māori Appellate Court as follows:

Element	Case name	Block name	Year of judgment	Minute book reference	Citation	Pinpoint reference
Example – Māori Land Court	Pacey v Adlam	– Matata Parish 39A 2B 2A	(2017)	178 Waiariki MB 32	(178 WAR 32)
Example – Māori Appellate Court	Faulkner v Hoete	– Motiti North C No 1	[2018]	Māori Appellate Court MB 17	(2018 APPEAL 17)
Rule	3.5.1	3.5.2	3.5.3	3.5.4	3.5.5	3.5.6

Since 2010, all decisions of the Māori Land Court and Māori Appellate Court are organised within the following minute books. These include individual minute books for the seven Māori Land Court districts, the Māori Appellate Court minute book and the Chief Judge’s minute book.

Current Māori Land Court Minute Books	Citation abbreviation
Taitokerau	TTK
Waikato Maniapoto	WMN
Waiariki	WAR
Tairāwhiti	TRW
Tākitimu	TKT
Aotea	AOT
Te Waipounamu	TWP
Māori Appellate Court	APPEAL
Chief Judge’s	CJ

The Māori Appellate Court minute books (post-2010) and the Chief Judge’s minute books are organised by year rather than by volume number. Therefore, give the year in square brackets.

Prior to 2010, Māori Land Court minute books were organised in a number of ways, including by judge, court district, area and topic. Pre-2010 minute books and their abbreviations can be found on the Māori Land Court website <www.maorilandcourt.govt.nz>.

Decisions of the Māori Appellate Court prior to 2010 were organised by district and, for the most part, were published in district Appellate Court minute books. They follow the same citation format as above except that the year of the judgment should be in round brackets.

3.5.1 Case name

(a) Contested cases

Cite the case name for contested cases in accordance with the general rules governing case names in rule 3.2.1.

(b) Uncontested cases

If a case is uncontested, give the name of the applicant.

(c) Applications filed by the Chief Registrar or Deputy Registrar

Cite these applications as:

3.5.2 Block name

(a) Punctuation

Separate the case name and block name by an en dash (–). The keyboard shortcut for an en dash on Windows computers is “Ctrl + -” (where “-” is the minus symbol) and on Apple computers “Option + -” (where “-” is the hyphen symbol).

(b) Block name

Give the block name in addition to the parties’ names. Historically, some decisions of the Māori Land Court and Māori Appellate Court were only referred to by block names and not by the parties’ names.

(c) Applications involving succession

Cases of this nature do not usually involve a specific block of land. Instead they relate to the distribution of a deceased’s estate and therefore succession to interests in a number of blocks. They may be contested or uncontested. Cite these applications as:

(d) Applications with no “subject matter”

Some applications filed with the Court will not address a specific subject matter. Applications of this nature are usually filed pursuant to ss 29–30 of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 and should be cited in the same manner as contested cases, but without reference to a subject matter.

3.5.3 Year of judgment

For Māori Appellate Court decisions prior to 2010 and all Māori Land Court decisions give the year of the judgment in round brackets following the block name.

Since 2010, decisions of the Māori Appellate Court have been organised by year rather than by district and accordingly the year of the judgment should be in square brackets.

For decisions from the Chief Judge’s minute book, the year of the judgment should be in square brackets.

3.5.4 Minute book reference

(a) General rule

The minute book reference follows the year of judgment. For all Māori Land Court decisions, the minute book reference consists of the minute book volume number, the full title of the minute book and the folio number. References to the Māori Appellate Court minute books and Chief Judge’s minute books follow the same format except that they do not have a volume number.

(b) Do not abbreviate

Include the full title of the minute book but abbreviate “Minute Book” to “MB”.

3.5.5 Citation

(a) General rule

The minute book citation in round brackets follows the full minute book reference.

Citations to the Māori Appellate Court minute books and Chief Judge’s minute books include the year of the judgment in place of a volume number.

(b) Background

Incorporating the full wording of the minute book (for example Rotorua Appellate MB) as well as the citation (10 APRO 32) will assist Māori Land Court staff to find the case being cited. This remains important as in some instances judgments are only available from the Māori Land Court.

In addition, it is necessary to have the minute book reference citation as there are currently many different Māori Land Court minute books and different abbreviations. For example, to simply put “Chief Judge’s MB” could lead the user to a number of different minute books. There are various Chief Judges’ books, with various abbreviations such as CJ, CJTK, CJTA, WHCJ, CJTW, CJWM and CJW.

3.5.6 Pinpoint reference

Give the pinpoint reference in accordance with rule 3.2.8.