The High Court has told the Waitangi Tribunal to reconsider a decision it made over rights to land, finding it returned them to a party that was not mana whenua.
A tribunal decision, made last year, said the Ngāumu Forest in the Wairarapa and the Pouākani lands in the central North Island, should be returned to Ngāti Kahungunu as a remedy for historic breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.
But the Raukawa Settlement Trust challenged that decision, and the High Court has agreed the Tribunal did not have the power to make that call.
Vanessa Eparaima is executive chairperson Raukawa Settlement Trust.
