An exhaustive codified structure is mostly a feature of civil law countries (such as France or Germany). I don’t know NZ law, but I doubt it follows this structure.
I don’t know where you’re going with that. I already gave a clear example of a fundamental difference in my comment (right to withdraw), I’m not sure why you’re trying to go into far-fetched discussions on army or navy which were never the point.
I find it a little strange that having legislation, passed by parliament and explicitly written in documents, counts as “not having laws at all” because they were not compiled into a series of books.
I’ve read both versions, but I prefer the original. My father felt this way too. I vividly remember when he acquired the 1949 revision and later told me how disappointed he was with it. Years later, when I wanted to reread the book, I read the revision so I could judge for myself, but he was right, as he usually was about anything connected with books and writing. The trouble with the revision is that it lengthens the book without adding anything really necessary. One of the great things about the first edition is its succinctness; it is much more tightly written.
What definition do you think I used?
It refers to English here, in case that wasn’t clear, as it was in response to a post about English’s status above.
Just wait until you find out about case law and precedent!
I guess it’s not no laws at all. Maybe I just don’t understand how the system works.
So for example if I want to know the status and definiton of “self-defense” in Germany. I can look into the Civil Law Book; under Book 1 - General Part; under Section 6 - Exercise of rights, self-defense, self-help; under Paragraph 227 Self-Defense. It will tell me under Sentence 1 that Self-Defense is not against the law; under Sentence 2 that Self-Defense is defined as a defensive action that is necessary to avoid a current attack on oneself or on someone else.
Or another random example, if I want to know about the status and punishment of getting someone to lie in court. I can look into the Penal Law Book; under Special Part; under Section 9 - False Oath or Affirmation and Perjury; under Paragraph 160 Inducement to make a false statement. It will tell me under Sentence 1 that it is illegal to induce someone to lie under oath and that that can be punished with up to two years in prison or with a fine. It furthermore tells me that it’s also illegal to induce someone to lie not under oath and that that can be punished with up to 6 months in prison or with a fine up to 180 daily rates. Under Sentence 2 it tells me that trying to induce someone itself is also illegal.
Now how would I go about this in NZ? What does the NZ law say about self defense and inducement to make a false statement, and how would I go about finding that information?
Your point was that the law was written in English and you heavily implied that therefore it should be included as an official language. So if we say that writing the law in a language is a criterion for it being an official language then shouldn’t a language that the law is not written in not be an official language? Even if you didn’t explicitly state that, I think that that train of thought naturally follows your statement. But feel free to clarify.
According to the law of New Zealand, SouthernGoPlayer is correct that English is not an official language of NZ. For a long time they had no official language (but English was the most common one, the language of government and the legal system), then they passed a law making Maori the official language to offer protection to this minority native language. Sign language was added later. There’s an active push by some to make English one too now: New Zealand coalition votes to make English an official language as critics decry ‘cynical’ bill | New Zealand politics | The Guardian.
So as a legal factoid yes there’s only 2 official languages in NZ, but what is legally true isn’t necessarily reflective of practical reality (e.g. legislating pi as equal to 3) or useful to interpret strictly. So yes a de facto official language is a bit of a non-sequitur, but when you have laws that are a bit strange, you might want to use words a bit strangely too to make sense of the whole, so I think Wikipedia adding English with the de facto caveat is reasonable.
You wrote two verbose paragraphs but you didn’t address the issue with your statement.
What is written in the Wikipedia article only makes sense if we say that an official language is a language that either A. Is used to denote law in a country or B. Is legally declared to be an official language. So basically to make this work you would need to use both of the ways to define what an official language is at the same time. Which to me seems completely random. The only reason to define it like that seems to be to make what Wikipedia says valid. Which is not a good reason IMO.
If we follow your suggestion that the criterion for an official language should be A (see above) - which I think would be in line with what you have stated so for in this thread - then we should also come to the conclusion that Maori is a de facto inofficial language of NZ because it is not (to a noteworthy degree) used for denoting the law.
I think you cannot have it both ways or if you have it both ways that would be pretty random. So either (using definition B) Maori is official and English isn’t OR (using definition A) Maori is de facto inofficial and English is de facto official. No matter which way you put it the Wikipedia article doesn’t make sense.
I never said that, it’s B.
Maori is official, English isn’t.
But as that leads to the silly situation of officialdom mostly using a non-official language, the laws being written in a non-official language and so on, it makes sense to promote English to a quasi official status, which we can call de facto, or quasi, or “not-officially-but-it-kinda-is”.
Came for the Go, stayed for the unexpected education.