page_title: R v Symonds
section_title: Judgment
hierarchical_section_title: R v Symonds / Judgment
caption_attribution_description: English: 1867 portrait of Henry Samuel Chapman. Albumen silver carte-de-visite on mount 10.7 x 6.5 cm.
context_page_description: R v Symonds incorporated the concept of Aboriginal title into New Zealand law and upheld the Government's pre-emptive right of purchase to Māori land deriving from the common law and expressed in the Treaty of Waitangi. Although the Native Lands Act 1862 waived Crown pre-emption, the notion of Aboriginal title has been revived in the 20th century to deal with Māori property rights.
context_section_description: The judges of the Supreme Court asserted the "paramount importance of the Crown's pre-emptive monopoly right to purchase lands from Māori".
  
  In addition, Justice Chapman held, 
  "Whatever may be the opinion of jurists as to the strength or weakness of the Native title, whatsoever may have been the past vague notions of the Natives of their country, whatever may be their present clearer and still growing conception of their dominion over land, it cannot be too solemnly asserted that it is entitled to be respected, that it cannot be extinguished (at least in times of peace) otherwise than by the free consent of the native occupiers."
  Chief Justice Sir William Martin considered whether there was any authority for the Governor-General to issue the certificates and concluded that there was no express authority and that no authority could be implied as, 
  "The 2nd section of the Land Claims Ordinance of June 1841 (Sess. 1, No.2,) declares and enacts that "the sole and absolute right of pre-emption from the aboriginal inhabitants vest in and can only be exercised by her Majesty, her Heirs and Successors, and that all titles to land in the said colony which are held or claimed by virtue of purchases or gifts.... either mediately or immediately from the chiefs or other individuals ...shall be, absolutely null and void."
caption: Justice Chapman, was an Australian and New Zealand judge and politician.
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