The Notification
On 29 March 2000, Alison received an email from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of New Zealand. It informed her that the Universal House of Justice had instructed the National Spiritual Assembly to remove her name from the membership rolls of the New Zealand Baha’i community.
The email read:
Dear Mrs Marshall,
The Universal House of Justice has advised us of its conclusion that, on the basis of an established pattern of statements by you and behaviour and attitude on your part over the past two or three years, you cannot properly be considered as meeting the requirements of membership in the Baha’i community. Accordingly, we have removed your name from our membership rolls and have informed the Baha’i institutions concerned.
Sincerely
NATIONAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE BAHA’IS OF NEW ZEALAND
Alison had received no prior contact from any Baha’i institution raising concerns about her statements, behaviour, or attitude. She wrote to the National Spiritual Assembly asking for an explanation of the decision, and separately requested, under the Privacy Act 1993, copies of all personal information the Assembly held on her.
Correspondence with the National Spiritual Assembly
In response to Alison’s request, the National Spiritual Assembly supplied several documents, dating back to 1998, which showed the Assembly’s interest in her had extended over several years. The Assembly’s letter did not explain the reason for the disenrollment; it stated that the decision had been made by the Universal House of Justice, and referred Alison there for an explanation.
The House of Justice later sent an email, dated 19 April 2000, to the National Spiritual Assembly, setting out its reasons for the disenrollment. Alison learned of this email only when believers who had written to the House of Justice about her case were sent copies of it. It was never sent to her directly by any Baha’i institution.
Among the documents received under the Privacy Act were a collection of National Spiritual Assembly minutes in which Alison’s case was discussed. One set of minutes, which recorded an update about Alison’s case, appeared to Alison to confirm that she had not been counselled. They read: “A question was raised about the fact that the National Spiritual Assembly had not yet implemented the instruction of the House of Justice to visit the Marshalls, and that the House of Justice must have received information from other sources.” Alison put this to the Assembly as evidence that no direct approach had been made to her, in contrast to its earlier statement that “efforts” had been made to clear up her misunderstandings. In response, the Assembly argued that the word “efforts” “does not indicate that all such efforts necessarily involved direct approaches to you by representatives of the institutions on the specific matters in question.” Instead of correcting its letter to the local spiritual assemblies, the Assembly offered to distribute a statement from Alison that set out her position, as it was required to do under the Act.
The Privacy Act Complaint
On 4 October 2000, Alison made a formal complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The Commissioner is empowered under the Act to investigate complaints and to attempt to settle them through negotiation. The Office began investigating the matter in April 2002.
In early April 2002, the Commissioner set out his conclusions. Where an agency is unwilling to change disputed information, the Act allows the individual to attach a statement to all copies of that information, so that both parties’ views are held on the record. Since the National Spiritual Assembly had indicated its willingness to attach such a statement, the Commissioner found it was not in breach of the Act and asked it to do this. He also considered the question of whether Alison had been counselled to be a subjective one, and did not see it as part of his role to investigate it.
Alison accordingly sent the Assembly a statement for distribution to the six local spiritual assemblies:
Statement pursuant to principle 7(3) of the Privacy Act 1993
29 May 2002
In accordance with a recommendation of the Privacy Commissioner and as agreed by the National Spiritual Assembly, I enclose this statement. It corrects a sentence included in a letter sent to your local assembly on 28 March 2000 about my disenrolment from the Baha’i community.
The relevant sentence is: “Efforts have been made to clear up her misunderstandings, but these have been unsuccessful, hence the supreme body’s decision.”
The sentence is incorrect. I was never contacted by any Baha’i institution about the fact that the institutions had concerns about my beliefs, nor was I ever counselled about my beliefs. That is, I was not contacted or counselled by the National Spiritual Assembly or the Dunedin Spiritual Assembly or any of their members, or by any counsellor (international or national), auxiliary board member or assistant.
(signed) Alison Marshall
The High Court Case
Alison initiated proceedings in the New Zealand High Court for judicial review of the decision to disenrol her. On 10 March 2003, the National Spiritual Assembly succeeded in having the case struck out.
The judgment turned mainly on one point: Alison had asked the court to review the National Spiritual Assembly’s decision, but the decision to disenrol her had in fact been made by the Universal House of Justice, which had then instructed the Assembly to carry it out. The Assembly itself had made no decision of its own capable of review, and the House of Justice, being based in Israel, was not a party to the case. The judge described this as an insurmountable obstacle to the claim.
Alison’s argument was that this reasoning could not be right as a matter of law. The National Spiritual Assembly is incorporated under an Act of Parliament, which is the source of its power to make decisions, including decisions affecting membership. Under principles of judicial review, a body empowered by statute to make decisions cannot act under the dictation of another party, since that other party has no power under the statute to make decisions on the body’s behalf. On this argument, if the National Spiritual Assembly had simply carried out an instruction from the Universal House of Justice, rather than exercising its own judgment, that alone was something the court could review — not a reason to place the decision beyond its reach.
The judgment also considered, without deciding, two further arguments. The Assembly had argued that its decisions were spiritual in nature and therefore not subject to judicial review at all; the judge did not rule on this, saying only that he would not dismiss the claim on that ground alone. The Assembly had also argued that because Baha’i community membership is voluntary, its decisions could not be reviewed; the judge accepted that voluntariness alone would not necessarily rule out review, but again did not decide the point, since the case was being dismissed on other grounds.
As a further, alternative basis for striking out the claim, the judge held that even if the decision had been reviewable, he would have declined to grant relief. Alison had not pursued the internal right of appeal or review available to her through the National Spiritual Assembly or the House of Justice. She had confirmed that she was not seeking reinstatement, and her aim instead was to establish that she had never been counselled and that the National Spiritual Assembly had misled the New Zealand Baha’i community in asserting that she had. On this basis, the judge considered that granting a declaration would serve no practical purpose.
Postscript
In the years following the court proceedings, Alison wrote several times to the National Spiritual Assembly and the Universal House of Justice. In 2004, she wrote to both bodies suggesting the dispute be set aside; the National Spiritual Assembly noted her comments, and the House of Justice asked the Assembly to confirm receipt of her letter. In 2018, she wrote to the House of Justice ahead of the nineteenth anniversary of her disenrollment, describing her continued devotion to Baha’u’llah and raising the possibility of being recognised as a “friend of the Faith,” a category she understood the House of Justice to have since established; she did not ask to be reinstated as a member. In 2020, prompted by a House of Justice letter on the subject of racism, she wrote again, asking whether the same spirit of unconditional love it described might be extended to her. She received no reply to either letter.
All documents relating to the disenrollment, the privacy complaint, and the court proceedings are held by the Hocken Library and available there for loan.