Ko wai mātou:
Ko Ngā Rangahautira te rōpū mō ngā tauira Māori o te ture ki Te Herenga Waka. Ko tā Te Kooti Arikirangi kōrero e ārahi nei i a mātou, 'mā te ture anō te ture e āki”. Ko te whāinga matua o Ngā Rangahautira, ko te poipoi, me te raupī i ngā tauira Māori o Te Kauhanganui Tātai Ture ki Te Herenga Waka. Ka tutuki ēnei whāinga mā te whakaoho, me te whakaara mai anō i ngā tikanga a kui mā, a koro mā e noho muna ana ki roto i wā tātou tauira mohoa nei. Ko te manako ia, mā ēnei tikanga te rangatiratanga o te tauira e whitawhita mai anō, ā, kawea ai ērā pūmanawa me ērā āhuatanga puta noa ki ngāi Māori whānui, te haere ake ne
Te whakapapa o Ngā Rangahatira:
Ngā Rangahautira’s beginning was in the small number of Māori law students that would informally come together before there were enough students to create a group. As the number of tauira Māori at the law school increased in the early 1980s, so did the formality and organisation of the group that would later come to be known as Ngā Rangahautira.
The Māori law students’ study group was established in 1982 by Tā Justice Joe Williams, Ani Mikaere, and Toni Waho. They ran formal weekly study groups at Te Herenga Waka for stage- one Māori law students. This occurred every year, which increased the student pass rate incredibly. In 1988, Pā Moana Jackson, then working at Te Herenga Waka, acted on a request by tauira at the time and approached one of the kaumātua at Ngā Kaiwhakamārama i Ngā Ture (Māori Legal Service) for help with a name for the Māori Law Students’
rōpū. The kaumātua who gifted the name was Hōhua Tūtengaehe from Matakana (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi te Rangi).
On a surface level, ‘Ngā Rangahautira’ means a group in pursuit of knowledge. The deeper meaning of our ingoa is about empowering ourselves within a system which fundamentally disempowers Māori. This is a reflection of our commitment to uplift te ao Māori within the kāwanatanga legal system.