A growing backlog of legal cases within New Zealand’s courts is raising concerns about its consequences on a fundamental right — access to justice.
Data obtained by 1News showed mounting caseloads in the country’s district court system. It was putting pressure on those working within the legal system, leaving both victims and defendants in limbo.
Figures from the office of the Chief District Court Justice showed the number of active criminal cases increased by 27 per cent (8741) to a total of 41,076 over the past six months.
New Zealand Law Society President Tiana Epati said the court backlog was a problem that existed before the pandemic.
“Covid has come along, and just made it much, much worse.”
The Ministry of Justice confirmed two trials last week were put on hold as a result of Covid-19. That was on top of the 3448 active criminal cases that were still awaiting a jury trial in the District Court — up from 3250 in September.
In the past six months, a total 82,350 court events were adjourned or rescheduled in the District and Youth Courts as a result of Covid-19. Among these were 630 jury trials.
“The challenge we have is balancing health and safety and access to justice,” Epati said.
“We need to find the healthy balance between that to still keep moving forward, but doing so in a really cautious and conservative way.”
She said greater investment in the sector was also needed.
“We need resources ensuring that lawyers can continue to come to court and get on with business, particularly during a pandemic.”
Social service Lifewise’s community services manager, Peter Shimwell, said the delays were having a huge impact on people across the justice spectrum.
“Those long-term stressors, the anxiety of people not being able to make plans,” he said.
“It’s why we have such high incidences of drug addictions. People with mental health issues and, in youth, we’ve got one of the highest youth suicide rates.”
He said the challenge of getting access to justice was a pretty common experience among the service’s clients.
The team was working with a victim of domestic violence whose case would only come to trial next week — 18 months after the incident.
“That’s really, really difficult to go through. She’s nervous every time there is a knock at the door.”
And one of Lifewise’s youth housing residents who was detained six months ago was still awaiting trial.
“That means that young person loses that accommodation,” Shimwell said.
“When he gets released he starts all over again.”
The youth is one of 2132 waiting for their day in court, having been charged but not convicted. The remaining 1021 of a total 3153 have been convicted and were awaiting sentencing.
Auckland Law Society’s Marie Dyhrberg said it created a lot of uncertainty for defendants.
“They don’t know whether to start university, they don’t know whether they should be telling the boss. They don’t know what sort of steps they should take in their ordinary life.”
She said making use of some of the new and innovative ways of working was key to helping the profession work through the backlog.
“Use remote [capabilities] as much as we can. Engage in resolving cases. Looking really hard to say do we need all these changes? Can we compromise? Can we deal pragmatically with them, especially with the lower level ones?”
Ministry of Justice chief operating officer Carl Crafar said in a statement work was being done to help address the pressures being felt across the system.
“The Ministry of Justice and judiciary have worked hard to strike a balance between maintaining access to justice and keeping people safe.”
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