WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Three New Zealand lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori Party, will receive temporary bans from Parliament and severe censure, it was announced Wednesday, over their protest of a proposed law byperforming a haka, a chanting dance of challenge, directed at their opponents. A committee of their peers recommended the penalties, understood to be the harshest ever assigned to New Zealand parliamentarians, in findings that said the trio's actions could have intimidated other legislators and were in contempt of Parliament. Their temporary suspensions are expected to be affirmed by vote during a sitting of all lawmakers on Thursday. The decision means that Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, who at 22 is currently New Zealand's youngest lawmaker, will be suspended from Parliament for seven days. The co-leaders of her political party, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, face 21-day bans. They won't receive salaries during their suspensions. The ruling is the latest twist in a fraught national saga over a bill,now defeated, that opponents said would reverse decades of progress for Māori, New Zealand's Indigenous people, and provoke constitutional havoc. Why were the Māori lawmakers suspended? Video of the legislators in full cry drew millions of views on social media and global news headlines last November. The bill they opposed was vanquished at a second vote in April. However, some lawmakers from the center-right government objected to the Māori Party legislators' protest during the first vote and complained to parliament's speaker. At issue was the way the trio walked across the floor of the debating chamber towards their opponents while they performed the haka. "It is not acceptable to physically approach another member on the floor of the debating chamber," Wednesday's report said, adding that the behavior could be considered intimidating. The committee denied the legislators were being punished for the haka — which is a beloved and sacred cultural institution in New Zealand life, but "the time at and manner in which it was performed" during a vote, according to the findings. The committee deciding the fate of the lawmakers is comprised of members from all political parties. The government's opponents disagreed with parts or all of the decision but were overruled. How did the suspended legislators respond? The three legislators didn't appear before the committee when summoned in April because they said New Zealand's parliament doesn't respect Māori cultural protocol and they wouldn't get a fair hearing. "The process was grossly unjust, unfair, and unwarranted, resulting in an extreme sanction," Māori party spokesperson and lawmaker Mariameno Kapa-Kingi said in a statement Wednesday. "This was not about process, this became personal." Waititi and Ngarewa-Packer, the leaders of the minor party that advocates Māori rights and holds six of Parliament's 123 seats, have for weeks lambasted the committee's process as intolerant of Māori principles and identity. The pair received more severe sanctions than Maipi-Clarke because the younger lawmaker had written a letter of "contrition" to the committee, the report said. Why did a proposed law provoke the protest? The controversial Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill sought to redefine New Zealand's founding document, the 1840 pact between the British Crown and Māori tribal leaders signed during New Zealand's colonization. The English and Māori language versions of the treaty differed and the Crown immediately began to breach both, resulting in mass land thefts and generations of disenfranchisement for Māori, who remain disadvantaged on almost every metric. But in recent decades, Māori protest movements have wrought growing recognition of the Treaty's promises in New Zealand's law, politics and public life. That produced billion-dollar land settlements with tribes and strategies to advance Indigenous language and culture. Such policies were the target of the bill, drawn up by a minor libertarian party who denounced what they said was special treatment for Māori as they tried to rewrite the treaty's promises. The bill was never expected to become law – and it didn't. But public uproar about it led to the lawmakers haka in Parliament last November. Days later, tens of thousands of New Zealandersmarched on Parliamentto oppose it in the largest race relations protest in the country's history.
