Moana Jackson

Not to be confused with Moana Maniapoto-Jackson.

Moana Jackson is a New Zealand Māori lawyer specialising in Treaty of Waitangi and constitutional issues. Jackson is of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Porou descent. He is Director of Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture (the Māori Legal Service) which he co-founded in 1987.

Jackson is the son of All Black Everard Jackson and the brother of Syd Jackson. He graduated in Law and Criminology at Victoria University of Wellington, and after a short period in practice took up the teaching of Maori language. He then undertook further study in the United States before returning to New Zealand to conduct research for the then Justice Department report on the Maori and the criminal justice system, He Whaipaanga Hou. His report was published in 1988.

He has also worked extensively overseas on international indigenous issues, particularly the drafting of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He was a judge on the International Tribunal of Indigenous Rights in Hawaii in 1993 and again in Canada in 1995. He was also counsel for the Bougainville Interim Government during the Bougainville peace process.

Jackson was a vocal critic of the government's foreshore and seabed legislation in 2004. He was also a vocal critic of the October 2007 police 'terror' raids. He resigned as patron of the Police Recruit Wing 244 due to his opposition to how the raids were conducted saying "I do not buy that this was a racially-neutral act". He is also quoted as saying "Those who take power unjustly defend it with injustice."

He lectures in the Ahunga Tīkanga / Māori Laws and Philosophy degree programme at Te Wānanga o Raukawa.

Awards

In 2017 Jackson was awarded an honorary doctorate from Victoria University of Wellington for his outstanding contribution to legal scholarship around the Treaty and to public debates about how Māori are treated by the justice system and their place in New Zealand society more broadly.