Bruce Harris

LLB(Hons) Otago, LLM Harvard

Contact details
Building 803, room 311
17 Eden Crescent
Auckland

Phone: +64 9 923 8032
Email: b.harris@auckland.ac.nz

Available to students
Open door policy

Profile

Bruce Harris is a graduate of Otago and Harvard Universities who was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1976. He was appointed as a Professor of Law at The University of Auckland in 1994 after two years practising as a litigation lawyer and 17 years researching and teaching law at the University of Otago.

In 1989 he was Dean of Law and Head of Department at Otago and from 1995 to 2000 he was Dean of Law and Head of Department at Auckland. From March to September 2008 he was a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is currently the elected representative of the professors on The Council of The University of Auckland.

Current Teaching

• LAW 211 Public Law
• LAWHONS 728 Studies in Public Law

Research Interests

• Constitutional Law – especially the empowerment and accountability of the executive and judicial branches of government, and the constitutional future of New Zealand
• Administrative Law

Recent Publications

Book Chapters

• B. V. Harris, “Constitutional Change” in Raymond Miller(ed), New Zealand Government and Politics (4th ed, 2006, Oxford University Press) 115-129
• Bruce Harris, “Judicial Activism in New Zealand’s Appellate Courts” in Brice Dickson(ed), Judicial Activism in Common Law Supreme Courts (2007, Oxford University Press) 273-322

Refereed Articles

• B. V. Harris, “ The Irish President, the New Zealand Governor-General and the Head of State in a Future New Zealand Republic”  [2009] NZ Law Review 605-657
• B. V. Harris, “Government ‘Third Source’ Action and Common Law Constitutionalism” (2010) 126 LQR 373-402.
• B. V. Harris, “ Final Appellate Courts Overruling Their Own ‘Wrong’ Precedents: the Ongoing Search for Principle” (2002) 118 Law Quarterly Review 408-427
• B. V. Harris, “Judicial Review, Justiciability and the Prerogative of Mercy” (2003) 62 Cambridge Law Journal 631-660
• B. V. Harris, “The Constitutional Future of New Zealand” [2004] New Zealand Law Review 269-312
• B. V. Harris, “The Treaty of Waitangi and the Constitutional Future of New Zealand” [2005] New Zealand Law Review 189-216
• B. V. Harris, “The ‘Third Source’ of Authority for Government Action Revisited” (2007) 123 Law Quarterly Review 225-250 [This article was awarded the Legal Research Foundation’s Sir Ian Barker Award for the best legal article or book chapter published by a New Zealand based author in 2007.]
• B. V. Harris, “Remedies and Accountability for Unlawful Judicial Action in New Zealand: Could the Law be Tidier?” [2008] New Zealand Law Review 483-521
• B. V. Harris, “ Replacement of the Royal Prerogative in New Zealand” (2009) 23 New Zealand Universities Law Review 285-314