video records of interviews with witnesses) requires judges to consider (amongst other factors) “the public interest in protecting the privacy of witnesses”.77 What these various references have in common is recognition of the fact that the prevention of certain forms of private harm can amount to a public interest. As in the immigration context, this is not because private interests are relevant for their own sake but, rather, because there is a public interest in the fair and humane treatment of individuals. Thus, the learned authors of The Evidence Act 2006: Act and Analysis have this to say about the reference to public interest in s 69:78 A private interest will not be relevant unless it can be argued to embody some wider public interest. However, the detailed provisions of s 69(2) and (3) make such an argument relatively easy to construct. Further support for this approach is to be found in the Law Commission’s commentary on the purpose section of the Evidence Code, on which the Evidence Act was based.79 The Commission suggested, of a broad reference in that section to “protecting … important public interests”, that examples of such important public interests would be “privacy issues and human rights.”80 In sum, the Department’s new approach to “public interest” is consistent with the statutory language of s 9(1)(c), and with the meaning given to that phrase in the immigration context, as well as in at least one other statutory context. It is also consistent with the only scholarly commentary available on s 9(1)(c). In his leading text on citizenship and migration law, Doug Tennent noted the challenge that the express inclusion of a reference to humanitarian circumstances posed for the Department’s narrow approach to public interest, and suggested, cautiously, that humanitarian circumstances might give rise to a public interest in a grant of citizenship if that “would be the appropriate state response to ensure fulfilment of international obligations”.81 On the other hand, the strongest argument in favour of the earlier, narrow approach to “public interest” lies in the existence of a range of statutory and contextual indications suggesting that a grant of citizenship under s 9(1)(c) should be rare and exceptional. This is a point of some importance, and so deserves to be unpicked carefully. There are, indeed, a number of indications in the Citizenship Act, and in the broader context, that the threshold for intervention under s 9(1)(c) ought to be a high one. A grant of citizenship denotes the “highest rights of membership” of a given society;82 a “personal and permanent” connection between the State and the individual, bringing with it special rights, powers and privileges.83 In addition to a somewhat under-articulated general right to the protection of the State,84 New Zealand citizenship bestows on the individual a range of concrete legal rights and constitutional protections in the domestic sphere (including the inter-generational right to pass on citizenship to one’s children).85 Perhaps as importantly, it allows an individual to travel on a New 77 Introduced by Evidence Amendment Act 2016. Richard Mahoney and others The Evidence Act 2006: Act and Analysis (3rd ed, Brookers, Wellington, 2014) at EV69.04. See also at EV68.07, making a similar observation about the reference to public interest in s 68. 79 This became Evidence Act 2006, s 6. 80 Law Commission Evidence. Volume 2: Code and Commentary (NZLC R55, 1999) at C51. 81 Tennent, above n 41, at [3.2.6(c)]. See also at [3.2.6(d)]. 82 Ding v Minister of Immigration (2006) 25 FRNZ 568 (HC) at [2]. 83 John Salmond “Essay on Citizenship and Allegiance” (1901) 17 LQR 270 at 270–272. 84 Ding, above n 82, at [2], [11], [227]–[285]; Ye v Minister of Immigration [2008] NZCA 291, [2009] 2 NZLR 596 (CA) at [97]–[133], [189] per Glazebrook J. See Tennent, above 41, at [3.1.2]–[3.1.7]. 85 Immigration Act 2009, ss 13, 120; Electoral Act 1993, s 47(3); New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, ss 12, 18; Citizenship Act 1977, ss 6, 7. 78 17 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3094731