The path forward for Make it 16 New Zealand
After a massive Supreme Court victory in November, Make it 16 New Zealand is preparing for a major push in parliament. We need data from scholars and partners around the world to make our case.
In November, the New Zealand Supreme Court ruled that preventing 16 and 17 year-olds from voting is unjustified age discrimination in breach of the Bill of Rights.
What is the legal argument in this case?
The New Zealand Electoral Act and Local Electoral Act says everyone 18 years or older has the right to vote. Yet the New Zealand Bill of Rights says our right to be free from age discrimination commences from the age of 16. Therefore the voting age of 18 is in breach of 16 year-olds right to be free from age discrimination. The voting age has to be demonstrably justified, yet as we know there are many more reasons to justify a voting age of 16 than one of 18. This means preventing 16 and 17 year-olds from voting is unjustified age discrimination.
During our court case we were seeking a ‘Declaration of Inconsistency’ that the parts of the Electoral Act of 1993 and the Local Government Electoral Act of 2001 that prevent 16 and 17 year-olds from voting are in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights. By making this ‘Declaration of Inconsistency’, the Supreme Court would be formally telling the world, and Parliament in particular, that our rights have been unjustifiably breached.
A short timeline of our 3-year long case
In 2019 we were approached by lawyers from DLA Piper who were interested in supporting us to make a legal case pro bono (for free).
We first filed in the High Court back in 2019, and we got a decision from Justice Doogue in late 2020. Unfortunately, while she decided there was age discrimination she found that the discrimination was justified.
We then appealed to the Court of Appeal (the next level of courts in New Zealand). In that case we… almost won. The 3 judges on the case found that there was age discrimination and that the Government had not justified it (disagreeing with the High Court on the second point). Basically, they agreed with our key arguments BUT they decided they had the discretion to decline to issue the formal declaration of inconsistency. In other words, while there was age discrimination, they decided they didn’t have to formally say that. The reason they gave is that this issue is simply too political for the Courts.
We found that result both frustrating and encouraging. We found it encouraging because it still gave us reason to take this to the Supreme Court and we could still go to Parliament and tell them that our country’s second-highest Court has agreed that 16 year-olds rights have been breached.
The Supreme Court heard our case in July 2022. After a very quick four months deliberation they announced their judgment in November. The Supreme Court ruled that preventing 16 and 17 year-olds from voting is unjustified age discrimination in breach of the Bill of Rights. WE HAD WON!
What’s next?
This is only the second time that a Declaration of Inconsistency has been made in New Zealand (the first time being for Prisoner Voting rights which led to a law change).
A few hours following our Supreme Court win and granting of the Declaration of Inconsistency, our Prime Minister Jacinda Arden of the NZ Labour Party announced in a press conference that the Government will draft legislation to lower the voting age to 16. So not only did we win our Supreme Court case but we will have a bill in parliament!
Our Bill
What we know so far is that the bill will cover lowering the voting age for both local and general elections. Lowering the voting age for general elections requires a 75% majority vote, which means we will need both the Labour Party and the opposition National Party to vote yes. However, lowering the voting age for local elections only requires a 51% majority. The Labour party currently has a 50% majority and from what we’ve seen in the news, all but two MPs from Labour support lowering the voting age for both elections. We also have support from smaller parties such as the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori which means we will very likely be successful in getting enough votes to lower the voting age for local elections. So our goal is to get the Bill to have an option to lower the age for local elections separately. As we’ve seen overseas many countries have lowered the voting age for local elections first and support has grown to then lower it for general elections. That’s our plan, along with continuing to meet with and lobby politicians, and grow our public support.
More information about the Bill will come out once it has been drafted.
Our ask for scholars around the world
The next phase of the Make it 16 NZ campaign will require us to educate legislators about the what happens when democracies lower the voting age to 16 for local elections. We ask scholars who have studied implementation of Vote 16 policies in local elections to share statistics and information about 16 and 17 year old participation in local elections overseas to help boost our argument. If you have anything to help please email us at hello@makeit16.org.nz
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Caitlin Taylor-Maddock is Communications Lead for Make it 16 New Zealand and a freelance designer based in Wellington, New Zealand.