The Human Rights Act 1993 is an Act of the

Parliament of New Zealand The New Zealand Parliament ( mi, Pāremata Aotearoa) is the unicameral legislature of New Zealand, consisting of the King of New Zealand (King-in-Parliament) and the New Zealand House of Representatives. The King is usually represented by ...

that deals with

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, r ...

. It was a consolidation and amendment of the Race Relations Act 1971 and the Human Rights Commission Act 1977. It came into force on 1 February 1994. The Act governs the work of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

Legislative features

The act outlawed discrimination on a wide variety of grounds, including: # Sex (including pregnancy and childbirth) # Marital status # Religious belief # Ethical belief # Colour # Race #

Ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

or national origins #

Disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, ...

# Age # Political opinion #

Employment Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any ot ...

status # Family status #

Sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring pattern of romantic or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. These attractions are generally ...

There are a significant number of caveats, including "genuine occupational qualification," "domestic employment in a private household," "to preserve reasonable standards of privacy," "national security" and "organised religion." The Act does not explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...

, and the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, supported by the government's legal office, has accepted complaints of discrimination based on gender identity on the ground of sex for many years. However, the decision to interpret the prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sex to cover discrimination based on gender identity is easily reversed. But an important dimension of the exercise undertaken by the Commission in New Zealand was toward the

empowerment Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...

of trans people, referencing the

Yogyakarta Principles The Yogyakarta Principles is a document about human rights in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity that was published as the outcome of an international meeting of human rights groups in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 200 ...

. In effect the commission was responding to one of the Yogyakarta Principles' Additional Recommendations to

national human rights institutions A national human rights institution (NHRI) is an independent state-based institution with the responsibility to broadly protect and promote human rights in a given country. The growth of such bodies has been encouraged by the Office of the United ...

that integrate the promotion of human rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities into their work.''Activist's Guide to the Yogyakarta Principles'', p. 115

References

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External links

Text of the Act
Statutes of New Zealand 1993 in New Zealand law Human rights in New Zealand Human rights legislation National human rights instruments

Legislative features

See also

References

External links