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Incorporated Societies Act 2022

Administration of societies - Constitution - Procedures in constitution for resolving disputes

42: Constitution may provide for types of dispute resolution

You could also call this:

"Your society's rules can say how to resolve disputes"

Illustration for Incorporated Societies Act 2022

You can include rules in your society's constitution about how to resolve disputes. Your constitution can say that certain kinds of disputes must or may be resolved in a particular way, such as consensual dispute resolution, which includes mediation or a tikanga-based practice. You can also include determinative dispute resolution, like arbitration under the Arbitration Act 1996, or adjudication. You need to be aware that some other laws may require disputes to be dealt with in a different way. If that happens, the rules in your constitution about disputes do not apply if they contradict those laws. This means that if another law says a dispute must be dealt with in a certain way, your constitution cannot say something different. Other laws can affect what you can put in your constitution about resolving disputes. For example, if your society is a trade union, the Employment Relations Act 2000 has rules about how to deal with employment problems. Your constitution must follow those rules and cannot include anything that contradicts them, such as using arbitration to resolve employment problems. You should check other laws that apply to your society to make sure your constitution follows those laws.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS532920.

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Part 3Administration of societies
Constitution: Procedures in constitution for resolving disputes

42Constitution may provide for types of dispute resolution

  1. A society’s constitution may provide that all or certain kinds of disputes must or may be submitted to any type of dispute resolution, including—

  2. consensual dispute resolution (for example, mediation, facilitation, or a tikanga-based practice); and
    1. determinative dispute resolution (for example, arbitration under the Arbitration Act 1996 or adjudication).

      1. This section and section 43 do not apply to the extent that other legislation requires a dispute to be dealt with in a different way (and the provisions of a constitution that relate to disputes have no effect to the extent that those provisions contravene, or are inconsistent with, that legislation).

        Example

        An incorporated society (T) is a trade union. Under section 161 of the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Employment Relations Authority has exclusive jurisdiction to make determinations about employment relationship problems generally, including matters about whether a person is entitled to be a member of the union and matters related to a failure by a union to comply with its rules.

        T’s constitution must not provide for employment relationship problems to be dealt with by arbitration because that would be inconsistent with that section.