A Māori lawyer takes te ao Māori to England to bring back skills to strengthen Māori navigation in the legal world.
The Borrin Foundation and Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga offer an annual postgraduate scholarship of up to $80,000 for Māori lawyers studying in Aotearoa or overseas.
Rhianna Morar, a Kāhui Legal lawyer of Ngāti Porou, Tapuika, and Indian whakapapa, will study at the London School of Economics and Oxford University.
She will examine whether the right to equal legal representation should protect Te Tiriti o Waitangi’s fundamental rights of tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake, rather than being treated as a procedural formality.
Morar says that as more iwi settle historical claims, the Māori economy is becoming a modern expression of tino rangatiratanga.
“What does that actually mean legally? What does tino rangatiratanga, What rights does that guarantee to Māori in these modern and economic bases, given that we have the economic capability to exercise our self determination as well in those spaces?” says Morar
Rhianna Morar says being afforded this opportunity is intergenerationally transformative for her whānau.
She is the only university graduate in her immediate family and a descendant of Paratini Te Mokopūōrongo, who signed Te Tiriti at Tokomaru Bay on 9 June 1840.
She will depart in September.
