Associate Professor Andrew Geddis

Andrew Geddis completed his undergraduate work at the University of Otago, studying law and political studies. In 1996 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard Law School, where he completed his LLM degree. In 2000 he returned to Otago to take up a lecturing position. He was appointed an Associate Professor in 2007.

Andrew currently teaches Public Law at the 200 level, as well as the 300-400 level papers “Law and the Democratic Process” and “Bills of Rights: Theory and Practice”. In addition, he is the coordinator for the second year course. His research interests lie in the field of public law, rights jurisprudence and democratic theory, with a particular focus on the legal regulation of elections.

Andrew is a member of the Legislation Advisory Committee, and has provided advice on several occasions to parliament’s Justice and Electoral Committee and Privileges Committee. He is also a regular contributor to the opinion pages of the country’s newspapers.

Selected Publications

(a)      Authored Books

Andrew Geddis, Electoral Law in New Zealand: Practice and Policy (Wellington, LexisNexis New Zealand Ltd, 2007)

(b)      Chapters in Edited Books

Andrew Geddis, “Political Communication”, in Peter Cane (ed), The New Oxford Companion to Law, (forthcoming, 2007).

Andrew Geddis, “The Regulation of Campaign Funding in New Zealand”, in Keith Ewing and Samuel Issacharroff (eds), Party Funding And Campaign Financing in International Perspective 13-32 (London, Hart Publishing, 2006).

(c)       Journal Articles

Andrew Geddis, “Rethinking the funding of New Zealand’s election campaigns”, Policy Quarterly  3(1) 3-10 (2007).

Andrew Geddis, “A dual track democracy? The symbolic role of the Maori seats in New Zealand’s electoral system”, Election Law Journal 5,347-371(2006).

Andrew Geddis, “The general election in New Zealand, September 2005”, Electoral Studies 25, 809-814 (2006).

Andrew Geddis, “Proportional representation, ‘party hopping’ and the limits of electoral regulation: a cautionary tale from New Zealand”, Common Law World Review 34(4), 24-50 (2006).

Andrew Geddis, “Representative democracy: what’s the law got to do with it?”, Otago Law Review 12(2), 197-208 (2006)

Andrew Geddis, “Parliamentary Privilege: Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?”, Public Law 696-706 [2005].

Andrew Geddis, “The unsettled legal status of political parties in New Zealand”, New Zealand Journal of International and Public Law 3(1), 105-131 (2005).

Andrew Geddis, “Hosking v Runting: A privacy tort for New Zealand”, Tort Law Review 13, 5-13 (2005).

Andrew Geddis, “Free Speech Martyrs or Unreasonable Threats to Social Peace? ‘Insulting’ Expression and s.5 of the Public Order Act 1986” Public Law, 853-874 [2004].

Andrew Geddis & Caroline Morris, “All is Changed, Changed Utterly? The Causes and Consequences of New Zealand’s Adoption of MMP” Federal Law Review 32, 451-478 (2004).

Andrew Geddis, “Liberté, Egalité, Argent: Third Party Election Spending and the Charter” Alberta Law Review 42, 429-462 (2004).

Andrew Geddis, “You Can’t Say God on the Radio: Freedom of Expression, Religious Advertising and the Broadcast Media After Murphy v Ireland”, European Human Rights Law Review 181-192 [2004].

Andrew Geddis, “The Horizontal Effects of the NZBORA, as Applied in Hosking v Runting” New Zealand Law Review 681-705 [2004].

Andrew Geddis, “Regulating the Funding of Election Campaigns in New Zealand: A Critical Overview”, Otago Law Review 10(4) 575-597 (2004).

Andrew Geddis, “New Zealand’s General Election of 2002”, Electoral Studies, 23(1) 149-155 (2004).

Andrew Geddis, “Reforming New Zealand’s system of election broadcast regulation”, Public Law Review, 14 164-182 (2003).

Andrew Geddis, “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out: R v BBC (ex p Prolife Alliance)”, Modern Law Review, 66 885-893 (2003).

Andrew Geddis, “Three conceptions of the electoral moment”, Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, 28 53-78 (2003).

Andrew Geddis, “Gen aft a-gley: New Zealand’s attempt to combat ‘party hopping’ by elected representatives”, Election Law Journal, 1 559-573 (2002)

Andrew Geddis, “What future for political advertising on the U.K.’s television screens?”, Public Law,615-625 [2002].

Andrew Geddis, “Garratt v Ikeda”, Journal of Contract Law, 18 250-258(2002)

Andrew Geddis, “Towards a system of public financing for New Zealand elections?”, Otago Law Review, 10(2) 181-212 (2002).

Andrew Geddis, “Democratic visions and third party independent expenditures: a comparative view”, Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law, 9 5-107 (2001).

Andrew Geddis, “Hide behind the targets, in front of all the people we serve: New Zealand election law and the problem of ‘faceless’ donations”, Public Law Review, 12(1) 51-68 (2001).

Andrew Geddis, “Confronting the ‘problem’ of third party expenditures in United Kingdom Election Law”, Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 27 103-152 (2001).

Andrew Geddis, “The ‘more speech – more competition’ solution: campaign finance reform after McCain-Feingold”, Journal of Law and Politics, 16 571-631 (2000).

Research Interests

Election Law, Constitutional Theory, Rights Law, Contract Law

Contact Details

Tel 03 479 8864
Office: 7th Floor - 7C16
Email andrew.geddis@otago.ac.nz