1942: Women Jurors Act

October 29, 2023

By AHNZ

Today in history, 26 October, 1942, the Women Jurors Act was passed by the Labour 1.0 Government. Its sponsor was Labour’s Mary Dreaver who put it forward on ideological lines since the public wasn’t really that fussed. Sidney Holland’s Opposition had a new strategy to basically agree with everything Labour did so that, eventually, they would ‘win’ simply by default. So, the law was passed.

Sure enough, the public did not rush to take up the opportunity to join a jury. This despite the fact that women, unlike men, had the prerogative to opt in and opt out. Women also had the legal right to stand for parliament as of 1919 but hardly sought to exercise that either. The days of the 1890s fake-shouldered ‘New Women’ were over and now men were men and women were women.

Not until 20 October,1943, was the first women juror, Elaine Kingsford (image left,) called. As you can see from her massive masculine mimicry shoulder pads she was a ‘progressive’ woman. As well as well-dressed she also happened to be highly photogenic and well-spoken which makes her appearance in a National Film Unit reel highly likely to be planned propaganda. The State probably decided it was for the good of the public to get more women involved in administering justice and set to manufacturing public consent.

By the 2020s women have long had equal rights in justice administration. Our last Minister of Justice was Kiri Allan who exited her brief career by crashing her electric Justice Mobile into a parked ute which stopped it dead. Drunk, she then “resisted arrest” which suggests strong results in both the experiments to let women drive cars and administer justice.

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Image ref. National Film Unit (1943,) Te Ara

Ref. Justice Minister Kiri Allan has resigned as a Cabinet minister after being charged with reckless driving and resisting arrest in Wellington. NZ Herald (2023)

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