Blasphemy law in New Zealand

Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, who was responsible for the development of the Queensland code, stated that it did not include those provisions of English law which were "manifestly obsolete or inapplicable to Australia".

Baron Charles Alderson, speaking for the court, declared that "A person may, without being liable to prosecution for it, attack Judaism, or Mahomedanism, or even any sect of the Christian religion (save the established religion of the country); and the only reason why the latter is in a different situation from the others is, because it is the form established by law, and is, therefore, a part of the constitution of the country".

"[10] In 1998, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in a report titled Article 18 – Freedom of religion and belief made use of the following definition: "Blasphemy is an ancient English common law offence defined as a publication containing contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible or the formularies of the Church of England which are calculated to provoke outrage in the feelings of any sympathiser or believer in Christianity.

[13] Interviewed by The Dominion Post on 8 May 2017, Anglican Archbishop Philip Richardson said the law against blasphemous libel was pointless, saying "My view is, God's bigger than needing to be defended by the Crimes Act".

The offence of blasphemy, however, protects only the Christian religion, with specific reference to the rituals and doctrines of the Anglican Church.

The commission reported that "it is argued that extending blasphemy law to cover all religions would raise serious difficulties in defining 'religions' and 'gods', would have grave consequences for freedom of speech and might contribute to religious conflict.

In so far as blasphemy causes hurt to a person's sensibilities, the existing provisions on offensive behaviour and other public order offences are sufficient."

[17] The Crown laid a charge of blasphemous libel over the 12 October 1921 issue of The Maoriland Worker which included the two poems.

In 1998, the Crown decided not to prosecute Te Papa museum for displaying Tania Kovats' Virgin in a Condom and Sam Taylor-Wood's Wrecked, a contemporary photograph based on Leonardo da Vinci's, The Last Supper, which featured a topless woman at the centre of the table in place of Christ.

[2][21] In 2006, the Crown decided not to pursue blasphemy charges against CanWest, a broadcaster, for airing an episode of South Park featuring a menstruating Virgin Mary statue.

The British comedy film Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) about a fictional Jewish man living at the same time and neighbourhood as Jesus Christ, generated significant international controversy and was banned in several countries including Ireland and Norway.

Dismissing the appeal in the High Court, Justice Wild said that he was "not prepared to second-guess the weight that the Authority accorded to the right to freedom of expression, relative to the right to respect for religious beliefs" and was not prepared to accept that the Authority was wrong to hold that the episode did not breach the standard of good taste and decency.

Justice Wild noted that the four members of the Authority were unanimous and that the Conference's sense of outrage was not shared by the wider community.

It said that in a modern secular society, such language had become a part of everyday speech and did not threaten widely shared community standards of good taste and decency.

[23] New Zealand signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) on 12 November 1968, ratified it on 28 December 1978 and it came into force on 28 March 1979.

The UN Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment 34[24] in July 2011 that stated in paragraph 48 that "Prohibitions of displays of lack of respect for a religion or other belief system, including blasphemy laws, are incompatible with the Covenant … ".

In July 2012, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the Rabat Plan of Action[25] which develops this further.

Paragraph 19 states that "At the national level, blasphemy laws are counter-productive, since they may result in the de facto censure of all inter-religious/belief and intra-religious/belief dialogue, debate, and also criticism, most of which could be constructive, healthy and needed.

New Zealand also signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) on 25 October 1966 and ratified it on 22 November 1972.

[26] This Convention includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties, and is monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).