ABSTRACT
The treaty marked at Waitangi in February 1840 ought not to be seen as an exhaustive representative or marker of the constitutional and political dimensions of Crown–iwi–;hapu relations. Hannah Arendt recognised the invariable interdependence of action given the "frailty of human affairs" insofar as activity, whether political or non-political was engaged. Unlike a legalistic constitution, conventionally understood as comprising the operations of the introduced courts and legislature, as well as their outputs in statutory and common law, the gaze of a historical–political constitution or, to pluralise, constitutions is cast more broadly. It is plausible that ordinary courts might draw upon international instruments and sources of law, effectively supplying further interpretative buttressing for Indigenous norms. Following J. Pocock, she suggests a negotiated set of arrangements might be a better way of dynamically addressing the terms of legitimacy and justice in co-existence between an introduced political – legal regime and ongoing albeit changing Indigenous norms.
