This Realm of New Zealand The Sovereign, the Governor-General, the Crown

New Zealand is a democratic constitutional monarchy, one of Queen Elizabeth II’s 16 realms. This book provides a comprehensive account of how the Queen, the Governor-General, and the Crown interact with democratically elected leaders under New Zealand’s unwritten constitution. The authors explain how these islands in the South Pacific were first brought within Queen Victoria’s dominions, the arrangements made for their future government, and how those arrangements developed over time. They discuss the responsibilities of, and interactions between, the key office-holders and the parliamentary democracy that New Zealanders take for granted, which conceals the country's ultimate constitutional underpinnings in the monarchy. Understanding the roles of the Queen, the Governor-General, and the Crown will be critical as New Zealanders look forward to debates about the possibility of becoming a republic.

Professor Janet McLean is a professor of law at the University of Auckland She is the editor of Property and the Constitution and author of Searching for the State in British Legal Thought, and she has contributed numerous articles and chapters in leading books and journals. Dame Alison Quentin-Baxter is a distinguished public and international lawyer, who began her career as a member of the Legal Division of the Department of External Affairs. She is the author of a report leading to the Sovereign’s issue of the 1983 Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor-General of New Zealand and the editor of Recognising the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.