The Government exceeded its powers telling us to stay at home and in our bubbles in the first nine days of the coronavirus lockdown, a court has found.

Public announcements Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and others, made between March 26 and April 3 were justified but went beyond the director-general of health’s actual lockdown order forbidding congregating, except with social distancing, and shutting non-essential businesses.

Staying at home and in our bubbles was not the legal position until April 3, so New Zealanders’ rights and freedoms were unlawfully limited for those first nine days, the court decided.

The powers existed to impose those restrictions but it was not enforced until April 3 when the error was corrected.

Three judges of the High Court issued their findings on Wednesday on Wellington lawyer Andrew Borrowdale’s challenge to three parts of the lockdown rules, finding in his favour on just one.

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Borrowdale said he did not expect to comment “at this stage – best to leave the judgment to speak for itself”.

But when he first launched the challenge he had told Stuff that "bringing the application is not in any way intended to impugn Dr Bloomfield personally or to decry his admirable work".

The court’s decision declared that the first stay at home order was not made under the law and breached the Bill of Rights Act’s freedoms of association and movement, but the court added that otherwise it was a necessary, reasonable, and proportionate response to the crisis at the time.

Potentially the court’s finding could affect charges laid for breaching the lockdown during those first nine days but it appeared few if any prosecutions would be affected, it said.

The court rejected a claim that director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield had made orders – banning congregating except with social distancing, banning opening of non-essential businesses, requiring the public to stay isolated at home except in certain circumstances – that exceeded his powers.

It also rejected a claim that Bloomfield had wrongly delegated his powers to define “essential services” to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. The court said Bloomfield defined essential services broadly but lawfully, and MBIE applied it.

In its decision, the judges said that even as the country returned to a state of semi-lockdown most commentators agreed the decisions the Government took in March to “go hard and go early” were the right ones.

But the rule of law mattered even in times of emergency, it said.

Three senior judges decided the case – Chief High Court Judge Susan Thomas, the former Chief High Court Judge Geoffrey Venning, and Justice Rebecca Ellis.

The Crown had said the statements that the court found overstepped the mark, had been only strongly worded advice, not commands.

But the court said the statements were “replete with commands”, with the word “must” and references to enforcement action against rule-breakers, but there was no suggestion the statements were deliberately misleading.

“The statements created the overwhelming impression that compliance was required by law – indeed, that is how we interpreted them at the time,” the court said.

It would be “quite unreal” to interpret the statements as requests for voluntary compliance, the court said.

Only Bloomfield was able to make requirements or orders and the court looked for statements or other evidence that he did so outside the formal orders, but it did not find it.

So when Ardern made the lockdown announcements it was understandable that she was making them, but there was nothing to show that Bloomfield had made the lockdown restrictions and Ardern was just conveying them with his agreement.

His own statements were not the language of “requirement” the court said. And when he made a second order he advised it was to clarify self-isolation and ensure police had enforcement powers.

In evidence to the court, Bloomfield said: “...We needed to move, and had no time to sort out the exact details. Some things would have to get sorted out later”