District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill

I move, That the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 13 February 2025.

Now, we’re giving this as a separate bill. It should have been part of the previous bill but the Opposition didn’t agree to put them together, but that’s by the by.

The District Court is the busiest court in New Zealand. It’s the largest court in Australasia. There are over 200,000 new cases and applications to the District Court each year. Most of the court cases are criminal cases. Over the past five years, there’s been fewer cases coming to the court but more effort from the court needed to dispose of cases. The time it’s taken to get cases through the court is increasing, and delays have had a negative social impact on defendants, complainants, and on other court participants, affecting access to justice and how quickly people can move on with their lives.

The bill will amend the District Court Act 2016 to increase the statutory maximum number of District Court judges by one, an increase from 182 to 183 fulltime-equivalent judges. The bill makes two consequential amendments to the District Court Act. Section 12(1) replaces 182 with 183, to reflect the judicial cap. Section 12(2)(c) states that the aggregate number—for example, 181.5—must not exceed the maximum number of judges that is for the time being permitted. This bill replaces 181.5 with 182.5. The statutory cap on the District Court judges includes Youth Court judges and Family Court judges, as the Youth Court and Family Court divisions of the District Court. The statutory cap was last amended in 2019. Since then, judges have been appointed, bringing the total number of full-time judges to at or near the statutory maximum. The increase in the statutory cap will ensure that the District Court is equipped to implement the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, currently being considered by this House.

I expect that the sentencing reforms, as well as other criminal justice reforms, will increase pressure on the court. This bill comes into force the day after Royal assent. I commend this bill to the House.

What you actually heard from the Minister, then, was that this sentencing bill, the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, that we’ve just seen go through first reading will increase pressure on the judicial and justice system generally. In fact, if we go back and look at the regulatory impact statement for that bill, you’ll see that the projected costs over 10 years are $150 million. Now, the Government has recognised that there is a significant backlog in the courts, and their solution to that is to appoint one more judge and give the whole system a whole lot more work. I couldn’t help recognise the slight tinge of bitterness in the Minister’s tone, but he’s got to learn to do things right—because he did want to cobble these two bills together and have them go through this House as one.

I want this bill—to be honest, we’re supporting it; we get it. We don’t want longer times for people on remand or victims waiting to see what’s happening with their trial, but we don’t want that to cloud the examination of the sentencing bill. The fact of the matter is that the sentencing bill places some quite significant burdens on the District Court, and we heard one of the reasons we need this judge is we heard that, in terms of the sentencing bill, the courts will have to keep a record of discounts or whatever reductions, mitigations for youth and for remorse.

Now, someone in the Ministry of Justice is probably just scratching their head if they know how the justice system works, because keeping it on the permanent record actually is no more than writing it on a bit of paper, and the members of the Justice Committee who attended the last meeting will know—because we had a good discussion with the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Justice; Secretary for Justice—that a file is just that: it’s a paper file. There is no centrally kept permanent record.

Frankly, I don’t know how the courts are going to look and find to make sure that someone doesn’t get two youth discounts or two remorse discounts or whatever it might be. That is actually going to create more workload not just for one more judge but for registry staff as well. Now, what we need is the digitisation project to be completed—and that’s where the energy of that Government should be, rather than distracting ministry officials to sentencing frameworks, which, by their own regulatory impact statement, they say is worse than the status quo, and where they say there are much better and more effective interventions to make better sentencing decisions.

Rather than that, we’ve got $150 million of costs to the justice system overall over 10 years, we’ve got a need for another judge—and I suspect it will be more than that over time—and we’ve got a whole new administrative system to keep tabs on how many discounts for remorse or youth offending there’s been. That Minister needs to work out where his energies should go, because he’s complaining about decisions of the Business Committee, but he’s the Minister; he goes to the Business Committee time and again and asks for extensions of time because his ministry can’t keep up or he hasn’t quite worked out what he’s going to do yet.

The fact of the matter is that this bill—yeah, it’s a small bill. Another judge isn’t a matter of high importance. We support it, but we support it not because the reforms of this Government are good, but we support it because we think that people engaged in the justice system—from victims to offenders accused, whether they’re innocent or guilty—deserve to have an effective and timely system. We will be watching very closely to see whether that is what the Government delivers, because we have serious concerns about that and suspect that they are far and away not going to achieve that because the Te Au Reka programme—the real solution to this—is running into a few hurdles, as we heard the other day. That’s where the energy should be going, not on worthless amendments such as these.

The Green Party also supports this bill in terms of the increase in the number of judges. However, as we see in the explanatory note, in the way that this bill ties in with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill, which just passed its first reading, there are some serious concerns with why we are increasing the number of judges in the first place.

“Mai i te pō ki te ao mārama”—“from the darkness towards the world of light”. This is the tagline for the District Court’s strategic plan. I think this is really important and timely in the context of what we’re discussing today, in terms of what the District Court and what judges serve and the purpose that they serve.

What we’ve heard in terms of the previous bill and also in terms of this bill from the Minister is not addressing the levers of crime. It is not addressing the root cause of crime. In fact, I am particularly disturbed by the fact that we are increasing this, which will require another District Court judge to support a likely increase in sentencing events—not in terms of the number of cases that’s going to be in front of the District Court; the number of sentencing events. So the whole reason we have something like this, according to the Minister, is that we are treating the people of Aotearoa, we are treating the New Zealand public, and those who are in front of the District Court as a quota system. We need to hit a certain threshold and a certain quota of the number of people who are sentencing. Who does that? Who thinks, like, “You know what we need? We need more people in prison.” That’s not the right attitude to our justice system.

So, yes, the increase from 182 to 183 fulltime-equivalent judges is welcomed, but this is only to do with judgment. Yes, we have potentially seen some areas that have an increase in funding for the District Court. However, this doesn’t actually solve some of the fundamental issues that we’re seeing through our court system, and particularly our District Court system in terms of chronic underfunding in terms of staffing. Before, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb mentioned the digitalisation project, which is still happening—it hasn’t completed. Issues, which I think many of the rural and regional electoral MPs would agree, with access to the courts itself due to derelict buildings—those are also things that need to be addressed within our District Court system, other than just increasing the judge by one.

I think, when we are looking at something like this, it would be really good to look at a more holistic image from the judiciary perspective of how we are able to give the New Zealand public the best service and the best and fairest treatment that they deserve, not simply deciding that we only need to increase because we’re going to have more sentences and we’re going to have more people, possibly, in prison as a result, which I’m sure will not be disproportional at all, in any way, shape, or form!

There’s another element that I want to discuss here in terms of when we’re looking at the access to our District Court, and that is in terms of the rule of power, in terms of New Zealanders’ fundamental right, in terms of their access, to our judiciary system. Some of the other issues that we are also hearing in terms of this particular bill not being the silver bullet to address the backlog that we have in the judiciary system or the workload, as this bill has indicated in the explanatory note, is the fact that we simply do not have enough by means of legal aid, or the fact that our legal aid system—that ability for people to have that equitable access to our justice system—is not there.

Although the Green Party is happy to support the very limited context of this bill of increasing the judges from 182 to 183, we would be interested to hear from the New Zealand public on the broader context of this bill in connection with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill at select committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to give a short contribution on the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill. It looks like the Justice Committee has picked up a couple of jobs tonight. I went away out of the House for a few moments, and I think we’ve had the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill referred to us. I want to thank my colleague Cameron Luxton for stepping in and doing a speech on that.

ACT will, of course, be supporting this, because this bill goes hand in hand with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill by increasing the number of District Court judges to 183, and so that will be needed to deal with the changes we are making. I did wonder whether Dr Duncan Webb actually wanted these bills split just so he could give two speeches, but I know he will be a diligent member of the select committee when these bills come before it, and so we look forward to scrutinising this very short bill, which, again, just adds an extra judge. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, which is addressing a very obvious need in our judicial system. I have great delight in commending the bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. Well, it might start being a brief contribution, it might end up being a very long one, but here we go: small bill, big impact. It’s a slippery slope. I get the pragmatics of getting 183, and it sounds OK; it sounds pretty harmless. But what I want to talk to in that regard is that to make room for more judges simply means, for Māori: let’s just open that pipeline up for more Māori to just roll down that, and let’s get another judge in so we can just make more room for Māori to be in front of courts.

As much as it might irritate people to hear that, the fact of the matter is this is a true and ongoing and historic terrible, terrible reality. Why do I know that? Because I used to work in the courts. I used to work with young people. I used to work in the family harm court and with family harm teens, more recently. It definitely showed the racial profiling. It showed how there’s an expectation, when you look at a screen—and this is a little bit of context, Mr Speaker, sorry; just tolerate that for a little bit, if you might—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): We’ll allow a bit of context.

You can imagine: the screen comes up in the morning, 25 cases reported. Then you’ve got this mug shot, and they choose the worst mug shot of this Māori guy—they get their worst photo and put it up there. Every piece of information, five sheets following, that describes this person is based on that horrible photo in that picture. If we can address that kind of racism, that systemic racism, those issues which are all about oppression and poverty—let’s have a look at that, and then I might even say you might need to reduce the judges. Let me just put those points out in front, in the very first reading. I look forward to the next. Kia ora tātou.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to say this is a short bill, but that would be a bit of an understatement. It is disappointing that we aren’t considering it alongside the previous bill, but when it does appear in the Justice Committee, it is my intention as the chair to have a discussion with our committee about whether or not we do have this bill traverse along the path along with the Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill. It’s fewer than 70 words. I think that’s about the number I have said so far. So, with that, I will commend it to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Yes, we support your one extra judge. I do wonder, though—given the hefty law and order programme and the increase in offences in youth offending, in gang patches—whether one is going to be enough. I thought, if you’re going to put a bill through, I would have chucked five in there, given your work programme. But let’s see how that one judge goes. We do support it in terms of increasing capacity in the courts.

I would like to talk about the District Courts, given that this bill is providing an additional judge, because there were a couple of programmes in place that would have actually helped more than just one extra District Court judge. One of those is Te Ao Mārama. Te Ao Mārama—independent reports over the past 40 years have called for urgent change in the justice system, for many of the reasons discussed tonight: failing victims, failing offenders, and failing their communities. This approach was the District Court’s solution to try and break that pattern, to focus on lower-level offending, diverting people into communities where there’s support and ongoing care to keep offending down.

In those areas where it was rolled out, which was in Gisborne and Northland, all those people involved said it was working, that people who had been repeat offenders suddenly stopped and they were supported. The alcohol and other drug treatment court is an excellent example of where therapeutic assistance can stop people from repeat retail crime and actually get them back into a life that’s out of prison and not costing the taxpayer more money. But that’s been frozen—that’s been frozen. The funding, under this Government, for that programme of enlightenment has been frozen and instead we get one District Court judge.

The next programme I’d like to talk about is ReFrame. ReFrame is another one being put on ice under this Government. Mark Mitchell has said it’s airy-fairy and that cops’ eyes glaze over when they hear about it. Well, I think he’s actually saying that it’s his eyes that glaze over, because I don’t think he understands what it intended to do. What ReFrame did was enable front-line police officers to use the best technology and the support of non-sworn, so that evidence is taken at the scene of a crime with the victim. That’s recorded and that’s uploaded into a system where that goes to a prosecution file that is completely filled out by support staff, and it means better quality evidence going to our courts.

One of the key reasons why court delays occur is that one officer in charge is responsible for all of the work of engaging with the victim, all of the work of compiling the prosecution file, and all of the work of turning up to court and making sure they’re there for all of those appearances. We had an alternative in place that would have enabled front-line cops to get back out on the job quicker and all of that weight lifted off their shoulders, to use technology and non-sworn to be able to do that back work and mean that we had higher-quality files going to prosecution, and that means fewer delays in our court system. That’s on ice too. But guess what! We’ve got one District Court judge to help with the flow, so that’ll be awesome!

The last one I’ll talk about is Te Au Reka—already spoken about—a system of digitising the court system and getting away from being completely paper-based. That one has been funded because of the justice cluster. There was a multi-year appropriation done under the previous Government and the funding for that has continued because it was taken out of that multi-year appropriation. We will be watching closely, when that comes to a close, to see if big projects that attempt to overhaul the way the system works and modernise them and make them more effective and more efficient actually get funded by this Government. Out of those three projects I’ve just mentioned—that would actually set New Zealand up for the future to really be victim-focused, to really be efficient, to really use our smarts in a way that we can target reoffending and stop more victims from being recreated. But, instead, we’re just going to have one District Court judge.

I look forward to this bill at the Justice Committee. I look forward to the other bill we’ve already talked about tonight. I also really encourage people to submit their views, because if we have a Prime Minister that talks about embracing technology and getting smart and doing things more efficiently, having targets, having outcomes, then why—why?—did Te Ao Mārama, did ReFrame, and Te Au Reka, all future-focused justice programmes, all get put on ice under this Government? It’s because they’re short-sighted and it’s because they want to look tough, but they don’t want to deliver real results that will deliver long-term benefits for victims of crime in New Zealand.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill in its first reading. Essentially, this bill will allow for the total number of District Court judges to be increased by one. It’s great to see this bill supported across the House. Long may this support continue. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s always nice to accept those accolades for being supportive across the House. It’s just unfortunate it’s for something as trivial as adding one District Court judge, but we will take it where we can get it.

We are supporting this bill, as has been said, mainly because people and society and the people of New Zealand deserve a system that works and deserve a system that certainly works better. Whilst colleagues have listed off a host of things that could have occupied the Minister’s time a little bit more productively, like the digitisation project or certainly the host of initiatives that the Hon Ginny Andersen talked about: the ReFrame Project, Te Ao Mārama—all good things that would have made a difference all on hold because somehow this vanity project of looking tough on crime has taken precedence. The Sentencing (Reform) Amendment Bill that we just spoke to not too long ago was a clear example of that. I certainly note the Minister’s disappointment that we weren’t able to roll this particular bill up in with that so that it could be considered together, but it deserves its own hearing, because it is a particular piece of legislation that is required to make this adjustment.

Whilst we’ve heard very informative and entertaining contributions tonight about things that could have been done better, one thing that we haven’t touched on is the requirement for the legislation. Just to entertain people, because it’s getting late, a little fun fact that’s no so fun but certainly is a fact: judges’ remuneration is set independently by the Remuneration Authority—you may know, Mr Speaker—to maintain that judicial independence. District Court judges are remunerated through a permanent legislative authority which is part of that District Court Act 2016. To enable control of the overall budget for the judicial remuneration, as judges have secure tenure, which I think we all know, Parliament maintains a cap on the fulltime-equivalent number of permanent judges that can be appointed, also known as the judicial cap.

As the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill increases the judicial cap, we also have to acknowledge that this has a long-term impact on the spending of public money. We haven’t heard much about that when we’ve talked about these law and order bills tonight—certainly when we considered the previous bill, we looked at the huge increase that it will take to house the proverbial influx of all these new prisoners that assumedly will be entering the system. All of the extra work—and it made it sound very grandiose, like this Government is being incredibly tough on crime and what it’s not going to do to crack down and what it’s not going to do to incarcerate all these extra people—but as we’ve heard tonight, at the other end of the scale to process all that, to get it all rolling, to do all the work, we just need that extra judge. It doesn’t quite add up, does it? It seems a little bit silly. But never mind—here we have it.

The District Court—as we’ve also heard tonight, and we certainly acknowledge on this side of the House—has been experiencing increasing delays and pressure to resolve a higher number of cases. We know that the backlog of cases was exacerbated certainly by COVID-19. We know that there were extreme weather events resulting in decreased court capacity throughout the motu. We know that there are still some District Courts that face those impediments and haven’t really got back on their feet up and to full speed again. So the New Zealand District Court is certainly the busiest court in the land and conducts most of the jury trials as well.

It’s with that heavy workload in mind and the backlog that certainly places stress on victims, on defendants, and on all of the people that rely on the judicial services and the judicial staff that we can very much see that this is a bill that is worth supporting. Again, to reiterate: we don’t support the mechanism by which it’s been perceived as being necessary—the sentencing bill that we’ve just talked about—but we certainly welcome anything this Government is seriously trying to do to improve the court system. If that’s one more judge in the District Court, then so be it. On that basis, we commend the bill to the House.

As I stand in support of the District Court (District Court Judges) Amendment Bill, I take the opportunity to acknowledge District Court judges and all the work that they do, keeping the workload moving—a workload that has gone up so much higher in terms of volume and complexity—and the need to add at least one full-time District Court judge, making 182 to 183 fulltime-equivalents. I commend this bill to the House.