District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill

I move, That the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

This bill will amend the District Court Act 2016 to increase the maximum number of District Court judges that can be appointed at any time from 160 fulltime-equivalent judges to 182 fulltime-equivalent judges. Judges, as many members of this House will know, are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Attorney-General. This bill is being considered under urgency because Budget decisions to appoint an additional 10 District Court judges and two further Youth Court judges cannot be implemented until the District Court Act has been amended. Recruitment will commence immediately after the enactment of this legislation. The new judges will, as I’ve said, be appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Attorney-General.

I consider urgency to be appropriate because of the technical nature of the bill and because its primary purpose is to give effect to Budget decisions. The usual parliamentary process will delay these appointments for several months, and the reality is that the backlog is here now and the workload pressures on the District Court are great. There are already long wait times, and these will continue to increase until more judicial resources are added.

The courts play a vital role in New Zealand’s democracy, as every member in this House knows. They help to ensure social stability by giving confidence that rights can be upheld and that offenders will be held to account. Courts also provide a very important forum for the resolution of private differences and conflicts.

The District Court deals with over 200,000 cases each year. Over the past few years the amount of time it has taken to resolve cases, especially in the family and criminal jurisdictions, has increased. This is largely due to increases in the volume and also the complexity of cases. Family Court cases involving family violence, protection of children, custodial disputes, and family separations have all added to the workload that that court faces. The criminal jurisdiction deals with serious offending such as rape and aggravated assault. As District Court judges are required to deal with more cases, and more difficult cases with more events, more judges are needed to help manage the increased workload.

The more time people—whether they are plaintiffs, defendants, offenders, witnesses, whatever—spend in the court system or are waiting around for it, the greater the adverse impact on their mental, emotional, and, in some cases, physical wellbeing. These people are already vulnerable, stressed, and sometimes traumatised before they come to court. The pressure of having to recall everything that happened to them for months afterwards while the court case progresses can have a serious impact on their wellbeing. Delays also cause defendants who may not be guilty to spend more time in prison on remand. This severely disrupts their lives.

The two additional Youth Court judges will assist the Youth Court to deal with the additional work arising from the expansion of its jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds. In future, the Youth Court will deal with young offenders in the 14 to 17 year age range. This expanded jurisdiction is expected to improve reoffending outcomes for 17-year-olds—when I say “improve” reoffending outcomes, I mean “reduce” reoffending for those in that age bracket—because of the Youth Court’s rehabilitative focus. Those dealt with in adult courts have a 15 percent higher reoffending rate than those dealt with in the Youth Court.

This bill will also create a buffer of a further 10 unfunded positions to enable further judges to be funded through future Budgets without the need for further legislative change. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to lead the debate on this side of the House in relation to the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. The National Party supports this bill. Our message and our emphasis in relation to court matters is to support good initiatives that will help to increase the timeliness of the courts’ processing ability, and policy and practice in that area. The Minister has set out some of the difficulties that arise for our society as well as our justice system when justice is delayed. I will only resort briefly to that cliché about justice delayed equals denial of justice, and simply say that, to the extent that this bill is able to help to rectify that matter, then we do indeed support it.

A couple of notes that I would make, for the sake of providing some scrutiny to the bill: we do acknowledge that the bill arises from the line in the Budget whereby additional funding is allocated for the appointment of more judges. So perhaps that’s not inappropriate as far as it goes, but it does mean that there are some matters that we do need to give at least some attention to before such appointments are made, in the interests of understanding how they might go some way to achieving the aims that the Minister has set out.

So while we do acknowledge, as I’ve said, that this may assist to reduce the courts’ backlog, clearly there are other system reforms that can and should be contemplated. So we look forward, whether it be in hope or expectation, that there might be something forthcoming that area. Certainly, the Government has made noises about reforming the Family Court system and it’s currently conducting a review for that. Once those findings are known, that’s something that we will look forward to participating in, and, as needed, being constructive to resolve any genuine issues there, but also, of course, holding the Government to account in terms of what the actual results might be.

So on that note, it’s beyond my reading of any of the documents that have been provided—which I think indicates that the information is not there, but I’m happy to be corrected if that’s not the case—that there isn’t any kind of analysis about the extent to which this might actually improve matters. We don’t know, for example, how much we can expect by way of reduced waiting times for people to come up before the courts and then to be processed at that point. So while the Minister does make a good point in relation to the need to reduce remand times whereby people are awaiting trial, we don’t know how much bang there will be for this new buck in that regard. So that’s something that we would welcome ministerial or official advice on as soon as possible, I suppose. I say “as soon as possible” in the context of the bill, no doubt, being passed today.

Detail that we would also like on this side of the House is on where exactly these judges might go. I think the Minister in his speech was giving some detail about the jurisdictions within the District Court. I actually didn’t catch those fully, so that’s perhaps a shortfall on my part, but I’ll return to that. But, of course, there’s also the geographical aspect of where the judges might go. I’d be interested in any thoughts from the Government’s side of the House about where the need is greatest and where the priority will be in terms of those appointments.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: The Chief District Court Judge decides the allocation.

Sure. I understand, of course, that the Chief District Court Judge determines the allocation. That’s constitutionally appropriate, and the Minister points that out, but, of course, the decision to provide a certain number must surely be based on some calculation by the Chief Judge, if not the Minister. So presumably there’s been some advice to determine that if a certain number are needed here and a certain number are needed there, then that’s why we have the total number that has been sought and, indeed, given in this 2019 Budget.

One little discrepancy that we do have in terms of the numbers is that it appears that the departmental disclosure statement says that there will be an increase of 12 judges, but the bill says it will be an increase of 22. So perhaps that’s merely a typo, or perhaps some misunderstanding, but I will be asking the Minister at the committee stage of proceedings, unless he or one of his team can advise prior to that, which of those two is the correct number or if there is indeed some other explanation for the discrepancy between those.

I don’t need to take the full time of my contribution, but I think it is worth placing this change in the context of some other developments within the justice sector. One is that there has been some increase in legal aid funding, but just a one-off injection of, I think, $32 million. It’s hard to know exactly how that correlates with the additional amount of funding going on to the bench, but presumably some analysis has been done on that. I would like to think that that’s the case. So that’s something that we look forward to hearing from the Minister. Again, the committee stage might be the appropriate time for that.

So there’s not much more that I need to say in this, the first reading. I’ve indicated that we in the National Party will support the bill. We support it for the reason that reducing the backlog and processing times in the courts is a good thing, but with some questions around how it will all play out and, in particular, what kind of accountability the taxpayer and all those affected by the justice system can expect by doing so.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure for me to rise to take a call, following my learned colleague Chris Penk, to support this bill. First of all, this bill is about numbers. This bill seeks to increase the maximum number of District Court judges from 160 to 182 fulltime-equivalent judges.

There are good reasons behind this bill. This is not only about numbers; the bill helps to ensure that victims achieve justice sooner and criminals face their day in court quicker. The coalition Government’s justice package will ensure that we have less offending, less reoffending, fewer victims of crime, and victims are better supported and protected. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. Can I just reiterate the support of our first speaker, Chris Penk, in saying that we will support this bill. I feel very strongly that this is a band-aid and I was very disappointed to see in the Budget that there wasn’t more money allocated to the justice sector. In fact, there was very little investment at all in the justice sector. I’d invite one of the Government members to stand and take a call to explain to us why there seems to be such a low priority, when you see figures like a 25 percent increase in serious harm coming before the courts.

Now, I acknowledge that we actually made some changes in Government, which I think are very good changes, especially in terms of youth offenders aged 17 being treated throughout—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Back to the bill please, Mr Mitchell.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am actually referring to the fact that in the bill they refer to 17-year-olds and I wish to address that issue, because that is legislation that we passed whilst in Government. I acknowledge the fact that now that 17-year-olds will be coming into the youth justice system there will be more pressure on the system. So I do support this bill. It goes a small way; not a long way. Like I said, it’s more of a band-aid, but it goes a small way in terms of trying to relieve some of that pressure and help some of the pressure that will be coming into the court.

But, anecdotally, we have got a big issue. Right now, we’ve got front-line police officers who are dealing with youth that are being referred back into the youth justice system, who are back out on the streets within five or six hours of actually being apprehended for serious offences. I had a very clear example given to me the other day: three youth offenders in a stolen car were pursued from the North Shore down to Ōtara on the wrong side of the road. They were arrested for serious offences; they were put into the youth justice system; they escaped and were back out on the street reoffending the next day, creating more serious harm.

So I want to see more investment. I said to the Minister—I was very clear with the Minister, when we came into Opposition and I met with him—that we would support any good reform that is brought to this House that we can see is going to have a positive impact on us as a nation and our communities. We’ll support that. I was very clear and said that we would not support the diluting of our parole laws, sentencing laws, or our bail laws. We don’t believe it’s right to transfer the risk back into the community.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Second warning, Mr Mitchell. Back to the bill, please.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Sadly, we haven’t seen that investment; we haven’t seen those reforms in this Budget round. We’ve got this bill instead. We’ve got what I think is a very minor bill, which is actually a band-aid that is trying to be applied here with the increase in some judges; that’s good. Let’s get some more judges into the system. Let’s try and clear the backlog. I think that when you look at that number—a 25 percent increase in serious harm cases—it probably actually relates to the fact that they’re getting clogged up in the court system.

So in relation to that, it’s actually a good bill. It could go a lot further, but that’s the reason why we’re supporting it. But I would appeal to the Minister—and maybe in the committee stage we could have more of a debate around this—there’s got to be more investment. We have to see the plans. We have to see the reforms that were promised.

Just very quickly, the alcohol and other drug treatment courts: can someone please tell us—and be clear about this—are we retaining what’s been an extremely successful pilot with our drug and alcohol courts? Is the funding remaining?

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Read the document, page 115—all there.

Page 115—I’ll go back and have a look at page 115.

💬 Hon David Parker: The answer’s yes.

The answer’s yes—we’re retaining the alcohol and drug courts, and they’ll continue to be funded. The Attorney-General’s confirmed that. That’s great to hear—that’s great to hear—because we certainly couldn’t find that commitment. We would like to see that. If we were in Government, we’d expand that. We’d be expanding that pilot—

The Hon Mark Mitchell will resume his seat. I have warned you several times about relevance.

The Wellbeing Budget, this is another part of it. The Hon Mark Mitchell mustn’t have been here for the central part of the Budget, which was increased funding for family violence, mental health, and addiction services, which is the holistic way in which you actually reduce pressure in our courts, because you actually deal with the problems.

I just want to briefly catalogue the history to this. Some time ago, the number of District Court judges was increasing markedly. The prior Attorney-General, with the best of intentions, was increasing the number of temporary judges. The number of temporary judges ballooned; therefore the number of total judges ballooned and the cost to the Crown increased substantially, and there was a controversy as to whether there was any increase in output as a consequence. There was also the problem that temporary judges who hadn’t previously been judges were thought to somehow be accountable to the executive—cosying up to the executive in order to get a permanent warrant. The former Attorney-General thought that was wrong, and he was correct. So he stopped the appointment of new temporary judges and put a cap on the total number of District Court judges, which was a bit of an estimate because at that time there hadn’t been a judicial resourcing model completed to properly assess the number of District Court judges that were necessary.

Those temporary judges have since progressively been made permanent judges, but, as they become permanent judges, you can’t appoint a new temporary judge, and the effective number of judges—unless we fix this—decreased over time. Virtually all of those temporary judges are now District Court judges, and we have a problem with the number of District Court judges.

The problems have been made worse by some appalling reforms of the Family Court. The Family Court has some problems at the moment. Those so-called reforms from the Hon Judith Collins pulled lawyers out of it, as if lawyers were the problem, but said that a person who was applying for custody of their children following a separation—or not even related to a separation—could get an ex parte order if they alleged violence or sexual misconduct. As a consequence of that and the exclusion of lawyers from inter partes processes, the number of ex parte applications has exploded. Now, 70 percent of applications to the Family Court are decided on an ex parte basis. Families are dislocated, and the other party to that dispute has had to wait months if not years to get an inter partes hearing to actually put their side of the case.

As a consequence of that and our Government’s concern about that, the Chief District Court Judge has moved resources from the criminal jurisdiction to the Family Courts. The risk is then that the District Court criminal lists will get longer. The District Court has been very effective at dealing with their criminal list, but they’re now suffering this consequence of failure in the Family Court and have had to move resources as a consequence.

This measure that’s been brought forward by the Minister of Justice with my support increases the cap so that we can appoint some more permanent judges. In the meantime, we have actually been filling this resource gap by appointing previously fully warranted District Court judges post their retirement as temporary judges. That doesn’t raise the constitutional problem that temporary judges do in advance of a permanent warrant. That’s the way we’ve been filling the gap, but we need more permanent District Court judges. How they will be applied will be for the Chief District Court Judge, but I would posit that she will fill in the hole that’s been left in the criminal jurisdiction by the need to push people across to the family jurisdiction.

So as Attorney-General, I am supportive of this increase to the cap in District Court judges from 160 full-time judges to 182 fulltime-equivalent judges.

Thank you very much, Madam Assistant Speaker. I want to thank the Attorney-General for that erudite explanation as to why this bill is needed. The National Party supports the bill. I agree with him that temporary judges are constitutionally suboptimal, and it’s good that we are increasing the number. As the Attorney-General has rightly highlighted, the volume of work going through the District Court is increasing at pace and is likely to continue to do so. It’s appropriate that Parliament responds by increasing the number of full-time judges that can be appointed.

I do want to make a point about why we are here on a Saturday morning doing this, because, frankly, although this bill is needed and important, I’m not sure it warrants the use of urgency post the Budget. If I may be so bold as to suggest this is an example of the Government making use of the ability to just quickly slip something through so that they don’t have to waste ordinary House time on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. I won’t belabour the point too much, because past Governments of both stripes have utilised the opportunity of post-Budget urgency to do that, but I have to say, this would really—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: At least this relates to the Budget.

Ha, ha! The Minister of Justice says it would be a waste of a Budget otherwise.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: At least it relates—“relates”—to the Budget.

Well, sort of relates to the Budget. On that basis, everything relates to the Budget. On that basis, you could pass whatever you like, in the sense that the Budget appropriates money for literally the entire realm of Government expenditure. So I’m not really sure that’s the greatest excuse: on the basis that it “relates to the Budget”. Literally everything the Government does relates to the Budget. That’s the whole point. But the point is whether or not this is actually needed in the short term and is urgent. I do not believe that it is. We do support the bill anyway, but I hasten to add that I think it could have been put through its ordinary parliamentary process. It’s a sensible bill, and we support it. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I do believe, in fact—to respond to Mr Bishop’s point—that this is urgent. It’s certainly urgent at the front lines of our criminal justice system. I know the courts in Auckland—so Waitakere, Auckland City, and Manukau District Courts—regularly sit well beyond their daily 9-5 time slots into 6 or 7 o’clock at night, just for lack of courts available to get through the workload—

💬 Chris Bishop: The hardship—6 o’clock. They have to work till 6!

—particularly in the family violence court. Well, it does mean something, Mr Bishop, to court staff, who have to stay longer just to get through their workloads because there are not enough judges. So it is urgent for those workers in our District Courts at the front lines, and it does mean something to the victims waiting for their case to come to court, to trial, or to hearing. It does mean something for people waiting to have access to justice as accused persons.

So this is something that we commend. The criminal justice system is certainly the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, and we do need to invest in all of the things that in fact keep our communities safe. That is, mental health care and domestic and sexual violence prevention measures, and we need to invest in eradicating poverty. We are doing some of those things, and we will continue to invest in those in future wellbeing Budgets. But I do commend this particular bill to the House today because it is urgently needed. Thank you.

Bill read a first time.

Second Reading