The First Criminal Sitting of the Supreme Court

Justice Versus Colonialism

In November 1841 a terrible murder of five people occurred in New Zealand--a woman, a servant, and three children--occurred in the Bay of Islands.  The murderer was one Maketu; his victims were pakeha and Maori.  The date is significant because it closely followed on the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in the North.  Signatures were still being secured in parts of the country further south.

Missionary, Richard Davis who had arrived in Paihia in 1824, was by now a very fluent Maori speaker.  In a letter he describes what subsequently happened:

It was Maketu's own father who came forward and gave him up.  A meetings of chiefs was called at Paihia, and Wake Nene, Heke, Tawai (Tawhai), Patuone and Pomare, all leading chiefs of the Ngapuhi tribe, discussed the situation.  Heke was furious at the surrender; he would not in the least have minded the Maoris shooting the murderer, but to pass over the whole adjudication to the British Government, was, he thought, to give up his independence.  But the others insisted that the young man should be tried according to the law that by treaty they had accepted, and sent a letter to Hobson, expressing their loyalty to the Queen and their confidence in British justice. [Cited by Florence Keene, By This We Conquer, (Keene: Whangarei, 1974), p.34.]

This incident is significant insofar as it shows how the majority of Ngapuhi chiefs understood that the signing of the Treaty meant a ceding of sovereignty to, and government by, the British Crown.  Hone Heke (of the flagpole fame) was of a different mind.  The subsequent trial was the first of the Supreme Court of NZ.  Davis was asked to be an interpreter of the proceedings for the Maori witnesses and attendees at court.

The trial was fixed for February, 1842 and it was the first Criminal Sitting of the Supreme Court in New Zealand under Chief Justice Martin, who had recently arrived from England.  I do not know why, but out of some dozen capable men at hand, the Government chose me, though the youngest of them all, to act as Interpreter, on this most critical occasion.  It was for the Government itself a question of life and death.

The greatest care was necessary to make everything clear to the Maoris, and it was an anxious task to make them understand the meaning of our antique forms of law.  There were many natives in court, who, of course had never seen our way of procedure; they listened with intense interest, as in the presence of Maori scholars who could have corrected any mistake--though they never once had occasion to do so--I explained the principle that the law assumed the man to be innocent until he was proved to be guilty; I told them, under the Judge's direction, the functions of the Jury and of the counsel on either side, and made them understand what was meant by the technical plea of "not guilty", and such forms of oath as "you shall truly try" or "the evidence you give, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." [Ibid.]

The whole manner of British court proceedings was foreign to Maori.   Nevertheless, as always, Maori were quick learners.  On this occasion they observed the scrupulous conventions of British justice and from it derived a respect for the processes, deliberations, decisions, and judgments of the courts.

The contrast was so great between the deliberation of the trial and the passionate way in which Maoris were accustomed to settle such matters among themselves, that they were struck with admiration and awe at the formality and patience of the proceeding, and, anxious as the crisis was, it was as a new revelation of our ways, and when far to inspire them with confidence in the desire, at least, of the Supreme Court to be scrupulously just in its administration of the law.  They were much astonished at the grave process of proving a crime that was already confessed, and greatly impressed with the personal demeanour of the Judge and the solemnity which I tried to put into the rendering of his words.  Maketu was hanged and his body buried in the precincts of the gaol.  It would never had done to give it to his friends just then, though a year or two afterwards the remains were handed over.  [Ibid.]

How tragic that subsequently New Zealand courts were used unscrupulously to remove Maori rights and relegate them to aggrieved second-class citizens.  The colonists' lust for Maori land and the government's lust for British settlement led to grave injustices.  It is well that those historical evils are finally being addressed in settlements of historical government injustice.