Comparative Maritime Law Procedures And Changes To Admiralty Law

• Author: The Hon. Justice Hugh Williams
• Position: High Court of New Zealand
• Pages: 17-24

MARITIME LAW ASSOCIATION

OF

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

33rd Annual Confe rence

28 Septe mber 2006

COMPARATIVE MARITIME LAW PROCEDURES AND CHANGES TO

ADMIRALTY LAW: A NEW ZEALAND PERSPECTIVE

Justic e Hugh William s∗

1. Introduction

When speakers from two nations as close as Australia and New Zealand are participating in a session

discussing comparative maritime law procedures and proposed changes to Admiralty law at a

conference session for a body as strong as the Maritime Law Association of Australia and New

Zealand (MLAANZ), it comes as no surprise that the conference papers largely spring from common

sources.

It also comes as no surprise that some of those sources also deal with similar procedural topics derived

from other maritime nations such as Canada.

Thus, one of the sources underlying Tamberlin J’s paper on ‘Maritime Law Procedures and Federal

Court Initiatives’ was a paper presented at MLAANZ’s 2000 conference, by the late Cooper J of the

Federal Court of Australia, on the ‘Review of the Admiralty Rules in Australia and New Zealand’.

For my part, one of the sources on which I have relied is the companion paper on the same topic, but

from a New Zealand viewpoint, presented at the same conference Broadmore DCJ, then a New Zealand

barrister and now a District Court Judge.

As is appropriate, this is a topic which recurs at MLAANZ conferences. Broadmore J noted that his

paper, in its turn, had as one of its bases Associate Professor Paul Myburgh’s 1995 MLAANZ

conference paper on ‘Harmonisation of New Zealand and Australian Maritime Law’. Tamberlin J also

invokes companion papers given at the 2002 MLAANZ conference by Ryan J and myself on Trans-

Tasman differences in Marshall/Registrar practice relating to ship arrests in our two countries.

2. New Ze ala nd Admiralty Rule s and Changes Since 1998

Broadmore J’s 2000 paper noted that New Zealand had updated its Admiralty Rules only as recently as

1 February 1998.1 Our current Rules, Part 14 of the New Zealand High Court Rules, are themselves an

updated version of New Zealand’s Admiralty Rules 19752 with some elaboration. Our Rules are what

might be termed a fairly traditional set of rules covering normal Admiralty topics such as: form and

content of Admiralty proceedings, arrests, security, sales of arrested property, priority of claims,

limitation and other procedural matters. There have been only a few changes to Part 14 over the eight

years since its promulgation.

∗ High Court of New Zealand.

1 High Court Amendment Rules 1997 (SR 1997/350) R 16.

2 High Court Amendment Rules 1975 (SR 1975/85).

(2007) 21 A&NZ Mar LJ

17