Delamere v Minister of Immigration
[2025] NZHC 3008
•10 October 2025
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND WELLINGTON REGISTRY
I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA TE WHANGANUI-A-TARA ROHE
CIV-2025-485-378
[2025] NZHC 3008
BETWEEN TUARIKI JOHN EDWARD DELAMERE
Applicant
AND
MINISTER OF IMMIGRATION
First Respondent
IMMIGRATION NEW ZEALAND
Second Respondent
Hearing: 6 October 2025 Appearances:
Applicant in person
N M Pender A W M Britton for Respondents
Judgment:
10 October 2025
JUDGMENT OF BOLDT J
Background
[1] Tuariki Delamere is a highly experienced immigration advisor and a former Minister of Immigration. He has become increasingly concerned about the way Immigration New Zealand (INZ) and successive Ministers of Immigration treat migrants who are in a relationship with New Zealand citizens or residents, or whose children live in New Zealand. Mr Delamere considers INZ gives insufficient weight to the desirability of maintaining the integrity of whānau in cases of that kind. He is concerned that families are often obliged either to separate or to relocate, as a family, to another country. The latter course means New Zealand children, often tamariki Māori, grow up outside New Zealand and away from their culture.
DELAMERE v MINISTER OF IMMIGRATION [2025] NZHC 3008 [10 October 2025]
[2] Encouraged by the Supreme Court’s decision in R v Ellis, which confirms that tikanga Māori is properly regarded as a source of law in New Zealand,1 Mr Delamere wrote to the Minister of Immigration in early 2024. He suggested INZ, when making decisions on visa applications, is required to consider relevant principles of tikanga. In particular, he argued that the principles of whanaungatanga and manaakitanga should influence immigration officials when crafting policies and regulations and when making decisions in individual cases.2
[3] In March 2024, the Minister replied to Mr Delamere. She thanked him for his letter but declined to direct a broad reconsideration of immigration policy. The Minister observed there is nothing which prevents tikanga from being taken into account when it is relevant. She noted, for example, that existing immigration instructions reflect the importance of family connections and the public interest in family unity, “just as the Refugee and Protection Category arguably reflects international obligations analogous to the values of hospitality and manaakitanga”.
[4] Mr Delamere was dissatisfied with the Minister’s response, believing, in light of his many years of experience, that the tikanga values he identified are given little consideration when immigration decisions are made. As a result, Mr Delamere has brought judicial review proceedings against the Minister and INZ in which he seeks to challenge their general approach to decisions under the Immigration Act 2009.
[5] Mr Delamere does not challenge any particular immigration decision, nor has he brought the proceeding on behalf of an affected client. Rather, Mr Delamere seeks to raise general concerns about the respondents’ failure to consider tikanga when issuing deportation notices or refusing visa applications.
[6] Mr Delamere seeks declarations that would, if granted, compel INZ to review its immigration instructions and decision-making processes to ensure they align with tikanga. He also seeks a declaration that it is “generally unlawful for the respondents to make immigration decisions, particularly in respect of visa applicants who have a
1 Ellis v R [2022] NZSC 114, [2022] 1 NZLR 239.
2 Whanaungatanga broadly means kinship or collective belonging, while manaakitanga encompasses hospitality, aroha, care and respect.
New Zealand citizen or resident partner and/or child, without incorporating tikanga Māori where appropriate or relevant”.
Strike out principles
[7] The respondents have applied to strike Mr Delamere’s review proceedings out. The Court may strike out all or part of a pleading if it discloses no reasonable cause of action or defence, is likely to cause prejudice or delay, is frivolous or vexatious, or is otherwise an abuse of process.3
The principles governing strike-out applications are well-established.4
(1)Pleaded facts, whether or not admitted, are assumed to be true. This does not extend to pleaded allegations which are entirely speculative and without foundation.
(2)The cause of action or defence must be clearly untenable. It is inappropriate to strike a claim out unless the court can be certain that it cannot succeed.
The jurisdiction must be exercised sparingly, and only in clear cases.
(4)The jurisdiction is not excluded by the need to decide difficult questions of law, requiring extensive argument.
(5)The Court should be particularly slow to strike out a claim in any developing area of the law.
Judicial review
[9] Judicial review proceedings allow the Court to ensure public powers are exercised lawfully and fairly. The fundamental problem in this case is that Mr Delamere does not seek to challenge the exercise of any public power. He does not challenge a particular decision of the Minister or INZ, but instead seeks a general declaration about INZ’s “processes and policy frameworks”. He hopes to secure a broad review of immigration policy and a general revision of the way immigration decisions are made.
3 High Court Rules 2016, r 15.1.
4 Attorney-General v Prince [1998] 1 NZLR 262 (CA) at 267, endorsed by the Supreme Court in Couch v Attorney-General [2008] NZSC 45, [2008] 3 NZLR 725 at [33].
[10] The Courts have cautioned against giving abstract advice devoid of factual context on many occasions. For example, in Sky City Auckland Ltd v Gambling Commission the Court of Appeal observed that it is “unwise for the court to express a view about a particular application of a section in the act in the absence of a factual context, particularly when actual decisions can be subject to appeal to the High Court”.5 Similarly, in Air New Zealand v Commerce Commission McGechan J observed that it is rarely desirable “outside academia, to determine points of law in a vacuum or against an uncertain factual background”.6
[11]As Temm J observed in Manukau v Attorney General:7
[5] …The Court will not embark upon the task of giving advisory opinions; the function of the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908 is properly restricted to “declaring contested legal rights, subsisting or future of the parties represented in litigation…and not those of anyone else”. See Gauriet v Union of Post Office Workers per Lord Diplock.8
[12] In Wislang v Attorney General, Grice J noted that an applicant for judicial review should identify the relevant statutory power, the decision under challenge, the facts said to give rise to a breach and the basis on which the applicant seeks review.9 She continued:10
(e)In general terms judicial review is only available if the applicant can point to something that has been done or omitted to be done related to an exercise of statutory power and often involves the interpretation of an enactment.
Discussion
[13] The Court only rarely strikes judicial review proceedings out. Usually it is just as efficient to proceed to a substantive hearing, especially as significant factual disputes are unusual in review cases. Nonetheless, I am satisfied that Mr Delamere’s misunderstanding of the scope of the Court’s supervisory jurisdiction is fundamental and that the proceeding is clearly untenable as a result.
5 Sky City Auckland Ltd v Gambling Commission [2007] NZCA 407, [2008] 2 NZLR 182 at [71].
6 Air New Zealand v Commerce Commission HC Wellington CP932/90, 9 September 1992 at 5.
7 Manukau v Attorney General HC Auckland M1380-90, 21 April 1993 at [5].
8 Gauriet v Union of Post Office Workers 1978 AC 435 at 501. See also Gordon-Smith v R [2008] NZSC 56, [2009] 1 NZLR 721 at [18].
9 Wislang v Attorney General [2020] NZHC 2588.
10 At [29].
[14] The supervisory jurisdiction does not permit the Court to comment on policy or practice unless it arises in the context of a particular decision. While nothing prevents an affected migrant from challenging a visa or deportation decision if INZ acts unlawfully, the judicial review proceedings cannot be used to conduct a general inquiry, untethered from a specific decision, into INZ’s approach to visa applications.
[15] It follows it is unnecessary to traverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Ellis; it is sufficient to note the Supreme Court did not indicate that its decision would require a wholesale revision of existing law and policy. Tikanga may play a role in developing the law, but Court’s decision does not mean clear and settled law must change.11
[16] In her letter the Minister agreed that Ellis “raises interesting questions for the Government to consider when it is making decisions generally but also within the immigration portfolio”. Tikanga may play a role in a future challenge to a visa decision, but decisions of that nature are always highly fact-specific. Even if relevant in certain circumstances, the role of tikanga would fall to be assessed alongside the other factors that are relevant in the particular case.
[17] Finally, and all else aside, the relief Mr Delamere seeks is simply not something the Court is able to direct. For the reasons already discussed, it is not part of the Court’s function to provide abstract guidance in the exercise of future decisions, nor can the Court order the Crown to engage with Māori in the development of new immigration instructions.
11 Ellis v R, above n 1, at [117] (per Glazebrook J), [164]—[165] (per Winkelmann CJ), and [264]—
[265] (per Williams J).
Conclusion
[18] I agree with the respondents that Mr Delamere’s proceeding has no prospect of success, and I make an order striking it out. With the respondents’ agreement, I make no order as to costs.
Boldt J
0
0
0