{"id":349347,"date":"2026-03-26T20:16:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/349347\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T20:16:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:16:28","slug":"speaker-gerry-brownlee-asks-court-to-recall-and-reconsider-mariameno-kapa-kingi-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/349347\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Gerry Brownlee asks court to recall and reconsider Mariameno Kapa-Kingi judgment"},"content":{"rendered":"

That judgment said Kapa Kingi, who is the MP for the M\u0101ori seat of Te Tai Tokerau, should be reinstated to Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n

Justice Paul Radich said the party \u201cmust now inform the Speaker\u201d that Kapa-Kingi had been \u201creinstated to Te P\u0101ti\u2019s parliamentary membership under that Standing Order\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TeTe Tai Tokerau MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi at Parliament. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Court documents obtained by the Herald and filed on Brownlee\u2019s behalf said such directions were \u201cthe purview of the Speaker\u201d and that \u201cdirections of this nature did not align with the principles of comity and non-interference\u201d.<\/p>\n

This direction to the party also then \u201cimplicitly directs the Speaker to then take actions\u201d to achieve the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe implicit message that Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori and\/or the Speaker might be acting contrary to the court\u2019s directions should they not act in a manner that the court has outlined also suggests a pre-emptive impeachment of the proceedings of Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

This action happened in Parliament on March 10 when the Speaker announced that he had been advised by Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori that it \u201cparliamentary membership has changed\u201d and Kapa-Kingi was now a member of the party for \u201cparliamentary purposes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TeTe Pati Maori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi (top right) sitting behind co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi during question time in Parliament in November. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

But the documents ask the court to consider reframing the paragraph that states that the party \u201cmust now inform the Speaker\u201d to consider \u201cwhether it would be appropriate to notify the speaker\u201d under the relevant Standing Order, or parliamentary rule.<\/p>\n

Under the Bill of Rights 1688, a core principle of parliamentary privilege is described as \u201cthe freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached in any court or place out of Parliament\u201d.<\/p>\n

The documents acknowledge it is rare for a court to recall a judgment, even if doing so did not affect the outcome.<\/p>\n

But \u201cwhere issues of parliamentary privilege arise, the wider constitutional significance and the potential impact on the relationship between courts and Parliament may justify that step\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Speaker\u2019s office declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That judgment said Kapa Kingi, who is the MP for the M\u0101ori seat of Te Tai Tokerau, should…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,27518,31036,60339,1349,59868,42,2959,10053,21141,52147,52146,2720,43,46800,24178,108573,37486,17426,1361,61,40,38,41,39,46003],"class_list":["post-349347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-asking","tag-asks","tag-brownlee","tag-court","tag-gerry","tag-headlines","tag-high","tag-house","tag-judgment","tag-kapakingi","tag-mariameno","tag-mori","tag-news","tag-pti","tag-recall","tag-reconsider","tag-reinstated","tag-speaker","tag-that","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ultimately"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}