Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s actually not that common that I get two speeches back to back—what a treat!

SPEAKER: Well, why don’t you give us a treat and make it short?

Dr LAWRENCE XU-NAN: You know, Mr Speaker, this is literally a conversation we’ve had before, but I feel like it does hurt my soul not to use the full 10 minutes. I’m sure this is something that I will need to correct once we are in Government, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa to support the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill in its third reading. I do want to acknowledge all who were involved both in the deliberations but also in terms of the discussions we’ve had during the committee stage of the whole House around this bill.

Just in terms of the context of this bill, I think the most important aspect of this bill is the increase in the number of High Court judges under the Senior Courts Act. There were other amendments as well, but I think I want to focus on the Senior Courts Act 2016 first.

Now, when this bill was first introduced in the House, the number of High Court judges was increased from 55 to 57. As we saw in the committee stage later on, this number was increased from 57 to 60 by an amendment from the relevant Minister. This is something that is really important—and this is also one of the key reasons why the Greens are supportive of this particular bill—and that is because the number of High Court judges has not increased in recent years, despite there being a significant increase in our population. But one of the things that we have seen—and it has been discussed by the previous speaker, Greg O’Connor—is the fact that in terms of the population increase, the last time the number of High Court judges was increased, the population had increased by 25 percent. There was a recommendation by the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, Helen Winkelmann, that the number of High Court judges should be increased by 25 percent to reflect the population increase, which would bring the number of High Court judges to 69 judges, instead of what we have seen, which is 55, 57, or 60, as per what was in the bill as well as the amendment. That was the first major aspect of this particular bill.

The second part of this bill is around the Coroners Act, particularly in terms of the ability for coroners to be able to close previously opened inquiries, and this is mainly with regard to the Coroners Act 2006. In general, under the Legislation Design and Advisory Committee’s guidelines, legislation should not have retrospective effect, but we do see this as being an important aspect of efficiency when it comes to the court system. In its advice as of 30 June 2025, the committee advised that there were 3,240 active coronial inquiries. The average age of the inquiries was 637 days—so just under two years—and the average time for disposing of the inquiry cases was about 957 days, which was just a little over two and a half years. This is not incredibly efficient, and so the ability for coroners to be able to close those previously opened inquiries is important if we want to be able to close them early.

However, the committee also took into its consideration the fact that some of the families may want to continue with an inquiry and receive findings about the circumstances leading to death, and it was important that the bill struck the right balance between efficiency and having a range of safeguards, which includes that coroners can only close an inquiry when the information becomes available; before deciding to close, a coroner would need to notify interested parties, including family members of the deceased; the bill would not apply to inquiries where the law requires a coroner’s open inquiry; and also section 91 of the Coroners Act empowers the Solicitor-General or the High Court to direct that a further inquiry be opened. So a number of safeguards have been provided in terms of being able to give the reassurance to the family members that despite the efficiencies being sought, there is a level of safeguard, and the coroners will still take the utmost care in terms of any investigation or any inquiry.

Similar efficiencies were considered under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, particularly around the management of pre-trial processes if a defendant is charged in respect of two or more offences in different District Court offices, and this is something that we’ve also engaged with the Minister on during the committee of the whole House stage. Once again, I would like to acknowledge the Minister in the chair at the time, the Hon Minister Nicole McKee, for her genuine engagement with the members’ questions on this particular bill—so thank you for that.

I want to draw members’ attention to probably the most fascinating aspect of this, which saw this bill being brought back into the House under a recommittal motion and also a second committee stage. This potentially also speaks to the previous announcement or release by the Attorney-General around the speed at which this Government, or any Government, is making law, particularly under urgency, and there will be opportunities or the instances where, potentially, we’ll be looking at bad law or, potentially, looking at voting on Amendment Papers or bringing in things that haven’t been factored in.

Now, the reason that I mention this is because under the first committee stage, we thought in that committee stage that it was a great idea that the National Party had voted on a particular amendment from Greg O’Connor to increase the number of High Court judges further, from 60 to 65. That is still four below the recommendation from the Chief Justice, but having 65 is a much better step than what we saw. However, when we found that out, we thought that that was a fantastic move. This is exactly what the judiciary had been asking for, but again, what we saw later on was a little bit of a “takesies-backsies”, because that wasn’t something that they were considering in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong—the increase from 55 to 57 and the further amendment by the Minister to increase it from 57 to 60 is a good move. But then again, if that was able to increase once or even twice, the question remains as to why there wasn’t an opportunity to consider a further increase.

This was something that I asked the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paul Goldsmith, during the second committee stage on this bill. I asked whether this was something that they had considered before bringing an Amendment Paper back to reduce it from 65 to 60. I asked whether this was something that was considered, and whether the Minister had considered a supplementary budget that would allow for that, noting that—yes—there are budgetary concerns and there are also budgetary restraints. I do acknowledge that an appointment as a High Court judge is a lifetime appointment, unless those people decide to step down themselves. However, it remains to be said that it is something that the judiciary has asked for, and this is something that would provide more efficiency when we are looking at our higher courts system.

It is disappointing that the Minister has decided not to do that. Further, it is also disappointing that the Minister, in response to our questions during the second committee stage, has also said that he has not had such a conversation with the Minister of Finance to even see whether this was a viable option to keep the number of High Court judges at 65.

So, on one hand, it is disappointing. But on the other hand, in both of the committee of the whole House stages, as well as in the previous readings of this bill, it speaks to the fact that the use of urgency, and the ability and the need to see parliamentarians going quite late into the night in order to do the voting—having those sorts of terms, generally speaking, on a bill isn’t necessarily conducive to good lawmaking practices.

In saying that, the Green Party does support this bill. We are looking forward to having more judges. That is something that will take place next year, I think, and that’s something quite exciting for everyone.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is about fixing what matters in the justice system. Justice delayed is justice denied. Every adjournment, delay, or procedural bottleneck means that victims and their families end up waiting longer for closure. It means businesses end up being stuck in limbo. It, ultimately, means communities lose confidence that the system can actually do its job.

ACT supports this bill, because it takes a practical approach to speeding things up. It lifts the cap on High Court judges so the most serious cases can be heard sooner. It tightens court procedures so judges spend less time wading through abuse of process and more time dealing with serious offending. It gives courts better tools to manage cases efficiently, rather than letting the system just grind to a halt. A justice system that moves at glacial pace is not compassionate, it is not fair, nor is it efficient; it wastes public resources, and it fails the people that it is meant to serve.

The bill builds on the significant improvements in court timeliness under this Government, including a 20 percent reduction in the District Court criminal case backlog since April 2023; a 20 percent reduction in active cases in the District Court’s civil jurisdiction in the year to July 2025, with the average age of active cases dropping by a remarkable 36 percent over the same period. The Disputes Tribunal has completed more than 900 extra cases in the year to July 2025 compared to the year prior, and a 21 percent drop in aged cases. The active caseload in the Coroner’s Court has reduced by 15 percent, which can be attributed to the introduction of associate coroners, clinical advisers, and relief coroners.

ACT believes that victims should be at the centre of the justice system, not forgotten in the backlog. Faster courts mean quicker accountability for offenders, greater certainty for families and business, and a system that actually works. This bill will not solve every problem overnight, but it is a sensible, targeted step in the right direction, building on the progress we’ve already made delivering faster justice. To the members on the opposite side, you’re welcome. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill. In 2023, when New Zealand First went to election, we wanted to speed up the justice system and get our victims justice quicker. That’s something, on this side of the House, this Government is achieving within this bill. This bill is reasonably simple. It’s increasing the number of High Court judges originally from 55 to 57, but through the amendment from the Minister at the committee of the whole, that’s now been increased to 60. A lot of that is around the complexity of cases. Cases are getting more complex. You’ve also got to think of New Zealand’s population growth. As the population is growing, obviously, the number of High Court judges we need, naturally, grows. We also have the basics of the striking out of plainly abusive proceedings on the papers. We have cases where, on the papers, judges should be able to make those basic decisions and be able to move cases on. We will also see streamlined criminal pre-trials. At the moment, where cases happen across the country, being able to hear those in one court instead of in multiple courts just makes common sense.

The part I do want to touch on is the coroner. The coroner is now able to close inquiries when new information makes them unnecessary. The interesting part for the Justice Committee, when we heard that the evidence around that, is that we are looking at retrospective cases. We’re going back and saying to coroners, “Actually, you can close those cases”, and it’s actually unusual for Parliament to make that retrospective law, but in this case here, it makes common sense, because we’re speeding things up and actually want to make those decisions and give those decisions to families, especially when the information is there to say that that case should be closed. Also, with coroner cases, there are over 3,000 active cases. I think, at the moment, we’re looking at something like over 600 days is the average case that those cases are sitting there, and, actually, the disposal of those cases is over 950 days. To speed that up and actually give some answers to families is, again, something New Zealand First supports. On that, I commend the bill to the House.

This is a split call—Tamatha Paul.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker, and a very merry Christmas to you and your whānau and to everyone else in the House. I hope you all have an awesome Christmas and a beautiful summer rest with your whānau and all your friends.

I rise to speak in support of this bill, the Judicature—which is a new word that I learnt this year, so great things all around—(Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill, on behalf of the Green Party. As speakers before me have talked about, this is a bill that does a number of things but basically begins to address backlogs within our courts and it also looks at eliminating abuses of the legal process.

I guess the main thing that I wanted to speak about in the time that I have is around access to justice. Minister McKee stole my line, but I was going to say also “access delayed.” Access to justice—

Tom Rutherford: Justice delayed.

TAMATHA PAUL: Justice delayed is justice denied, which is really great.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Collaboration is good.

TAMATHA PAUL: Yeah, cross-party collaboration; what a good way to end the year. We know that there was a significant backlog in the courts which was accumulated over the COVID era, and this bill addresses some steps that we can take to begin to clear that backlog. I had a really awesome meeting with the new chair of the New Zealand Parole Board today, and we had a discussion about the impacts that backlog can also have on the other end of the process for them on the Parole Board when they’re processing people who are exiting the criminal justice system. So it’s interesting to see the flow-on effect that those backlogs can have and the small steps that we can take to allow for more judges and reduce, I guess, time wasting within the justice system. These are things that are going to speed up that process, so that’s really helpful.

I particularly think about people who have got cases within the justice system that bring them a lot of strife and a lot of emotional grievance; thinking, particularly, about people who have been victims of violence, victims of family or sexual violence. You know, it can be quite emotionally impactful for them to have to wait for that process to happen. So any increases in speed to that justice process is going to be a good thing for everybody.

I guess the one thing I did want to talk about, though, is there are other contributing factors to the court backlogs. When this Government was passing three-strikes legislation and when they were passing the sentencing law reforms, the regulatory impact statements were really clear on the impact that would have on the judiciary in terms of those backlogs, because it meant opening up more space for re-litigation and more space for judicially reviewing some of those decisions that were being made. Because this Government is a lot more directive when it comes to the judiciary, how much they can give in terms of sentence discounts, and the way that they should execute their power, which is an overreach of the Government into the judiciary, which shouldn’t happen. So there are other things and other decisions and other choices that have been made by this Government that contribute to that backlog. So, while this bill seeks to eliminate some of those delays, we might also want to consider some of the bills that we’ve passed in this term that might also add to those backlogs.

The other thing, I guess, that might be worth mentioning in terms of this bill is the use of the word “plainly abusive”. We struggled during committee of the whole House on this bill to try and understand what the use of the word “plainly” might mean. So I’m looking forward to seeing the way that judges might apply the provisions in these bills to define what “plainly abusive” means in the sense of how they develop their case law.

So we support this bill. We hope that it means that more people will have access to justice, more people will be able to get that certainty in their lives when it comes to matters that they’re bringing before the courts, and, yeah—everyone: have an awesome break, look after yourself, stay safe. And to people watching at home: drive safe, don’t drink-drive, have a great Christmas, and see you next year. Kia ora.

It must that time of year—merry Christmas, Madam Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Bates.

CARL BATES: I can’t believe I’m standing up in this House speaking on a bill that the Greens have just said they are going to support, just before me. So it definitely must be that time of year, and I’m excited to end the year on such a positive note as we do good work to improve the justice system in this country and continue to reduce the number of victims in the system.

I want to highlight one point and that is that a District Court judge will now be able to direct pre-trial processes for a defendant facing multiple charges to occur in one District Court office rather than multiple processes across multiple court offices. This is a great way of getting results faster in our court system, and, therefore, I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thought Tamatha Paul’s contribution on how to reduce or improve timeliness in court—that is to say, don’t get caught drink-driving and stay out of court—is a very good idea, so thank you for that piece of wisdom, Tamatha Paul.

Look, yes, we support this bill, despite Carl Bates, but I do want to point out—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: He didn’t hear you; you may want to repeat it for the member.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No, I know, he wasn’t paying attention, but that’s not unusual, Madam Speaker. This Government is certainly creating plenty of work for judges, not only the three-strikes legislation, which is yet to take effect [Interruption]—pardon?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I didn’t say anything. There were too many of them talking. I didn’t say a word.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Oh, sorry. I thought it was something wise coming from the Chair, not bickering from the rabble over there—and, of course, the Sentencing Act, which we know will simply increase work. But, on top of that, there’s a landslide of judicial reviews because of the poor government that is happening. I mean, only today—it is a Christmas rush, admittedly—but only today, we’ve seen the High Court come out and say that the Government was wrong in issuing an injunction preventing the Government from progressing its work on puberty blockers until it takes into account, properly, medical advice. If the Government were to actually follow proper procedure and listen to doctors when they’re meddling in doctors prescribing drugs, then perhaps the judges wouldn’t be quite so busy, and we wouldn’t need more of them.

Today, another judicial review came out telling the Government—and here’s a cracker—telling the Government that, in respect of corrections, they should follow the law; that the fact that they haven’t recruited enough prison staff isn’t a good reason for not giving prisoners their statutory entitlement. The statutory entitlement which they were talking about was one hour’s exercise outside a day. In the evidence, in the corrections case, there was a long list of prisoners who were regularly—not in isolated instances, but regularly—not being given one hour’s exercise a day. The response of the Government through the Department of Corrections was “We’re a bit busy.”, and the judge said, “You’re a bit busy is not an excuse for breaking the law.” What I found mind-bending in that case was that Corrections said, “Well, we know we’re not obeying the law. We know we’re breaking the law in respect of prisoner entitlement, but don’t make us do it.”, and the judge said, “I’m sorry, but no. I am issuing an order that you obey the law.”

But that’s typical of this Government. They seem to think that the law is some sort of general guidelines that you should follow if you can manage it. No wonder we need judges to come—and more judges—and tell this Government to follow proper process and to follow the law. And, of course, probably Greg O’Connor’s amendment, which would have increased over and above what the Government proposes—at least increase the amount of judges that could be appointed; give a band of judges where it shouldn’t go below this and it can go up to the higher number—was a good idea. In fact, Government MPs thought it was a good idea, because they voted for that amendment in the committee of the whole House. Either that or they were snoozing like Carl Bates was just before, because that’s what they did. Then the Minister came back to this House and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with my party whip who voted for that.”

I don’t know what’s going on over there. Either the backbenchers are revolting—well, that goes without saying—or they don’t know what they’re doing; the whip doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s casting votes willy-nilly, and the Minister has to come back and clean up after the chief whip. Well, that’s happened—that’s happened before, hasn’t it? Can’t count, doesn’t know the rules. Anyway, we find ourselves having to go back to committee to get what the Minister wants, and here we have this bill. So, good, we could have more judges—and Greg O’Connor, last night, gave a cracking good speech, and he observed that, in fact, in terms of judges per capita, we’ve been falling behind for some time. I suppose this is the kind of inflation adjustment that we agree with. In fact, we still haven’t come up to the number of judges per citizen that we would have had in the 1970s and so on, so the judges are still working hard.

There is, of course, a number of other initiatives in this legislation with which we agree—one which I had, through select committee, kind of expressed caution and continue to express caution over, and, in fact, is reflected in the tone of the select committee report. That is throwing out abusive proceedings without any hearing and also barring people from bringing new proceedings. The reason for this is that difficult people—people who are not nice people—can actually have good cases. Many a time, someone has brought a claim which has been poorly expressed, which has perhaps been even littered with a few expletives and where they have perhaps done it in a way which borders on harassing, but, underlying that claim—it is important that we don’t look at the person, we don’t look just at their behaviour; we look at the genuine merits of the claim. We need to be very cautious in limiting the rights of people to come in, genuinely walk into the court, stand up, and say, “Well, look, judge, here’s my problem.”—not through a lawyer, because these people aren’t generally using lawyers; they’re just litigants in person and say, “Here’s what happened.”

I accept judges don’t like—and I’m not trying to criticise the judges here, but they would much prefer to have a well-ordered and well-pleaded case with nicely, tightly prepared evidence. But that’s not how human nature works. There’s many people who want to come into court and they want to complain about a wrong that they feel they have suffered and they want to know whether the law provides a remedy, and they can do that in pretty obnoxious ways. We have to be very cautious that when someone wants to come to court, we don’t throw it out because it’s presented in an obnoxious manner. We’ve got to say that the case is not only pleaded badly and pleaded rudely but it lacks merit. It is the job of a judge—the tough job of a judge—to burrow down and determine whether there’s a kernel of a good claim in there, and to actually provide guidance, particularly to litigants in person, to make sure that they can order their claim and articulate it accurately and comply with the rules of the court. So, yes, we agree that there are cases where abusive proceedings should be struck out because they can be used as a tool to harass and torment. That’s why we’re supporting this legislation, but just expressing our caution and hope that judges will interpret that in the manner it’s intended—for only the most egregious and meritless cases.

And, of course, the innovations around coroners: the delays in the coroner’s court have been a bane for many years. It’s particularly troubling when people really want to know the cause of death of a loved one and want to know what steps have been in put into place to prevent further tragedies in the future. Of course, in some cases, there’s a situation where, in fact, it’s become clear that a full hearing isn’t needed, that we can streamline that procedure; we can put the case to bed, so to speak, and, essentially, give just that degree of closure to the families and other people who are interested. We agree that that’s a good innovation, as well, that kind of procedural streamlining in the coroner’s court—giving coroners more power to, essentially, take a case and say, “Look, we don’t need to go to a full hearing on that. We’ve got the evidence before us now, which we didn’t know existed before. We can close that file and let the families know that they won’t have to go through a full hearing.”

So, good legislation. The Government’s certainly creating plenty of work for judges. They probably should have picked up Greg O’Connor’s amendment, because they’re going to need more soon, at this rate. But don’t worry, end of next year, they’ll be up.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. As members have rightly said, our Government’s supporting the courts to be more efficient and to minimise delays. We’ve actually seen that by the end of 31 March this year, cases disposed of within expected time frames had actually gone up to 81 percent after almost a decade of declining timeliness. That’s progress. This bill is enabling that to continue to move forward, and this legislation really will help that happen.

This is my last opportunity to speak in the House for the year, Madam Speaker, so I wish you a merry Christmas. I wish members on the other side and on my side a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I look forward to seeing you in 2026.

Thank you. This call’s a split call—Camilla Belich.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to start by echoing the words of my colleague across the House in wishing both you, Madam Speaker, and all the staff here at Parliament, colleagues opposite, and those working in and around Parliament, a very merry Christmas—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

CAMILLA BELICH: —and a happy and safe festive break. So thank you for that opportunity. I am interested to speak on this bill. I haven’t been able to participate in past readings or in the committee stage of this, but it was a particularly interesting committee stage, so I’m looking forward to the opportunity to traverse that, for the record.

Judges do a really important job in New Zealand. They are absolutely essential to the way that our democracy works, and they have a very difficult role in the sense that their exercise in their role in the justice system is not always appreciated by those who receive it. They can be subjected to very personal attacks, security concerns. They can be criticised. It is a convention in this House, an unusual opportunity, to safely be speaking about judges, because often in this House we avoid speaking about them because of the separation of powers. So I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work that our hard-working judges do across New Zealand. I think we have an exceptional legal fraternity in New Zealand and exceptionally skilled judges, much more skilled lawyers and practitioners than myself who work in these areas, and we are very, very well-served and very lucky to have them.

We will be even more well-served once we increase the number of judges that we’re able to have in the High Court. So I just want to acknowledge them for their work. They are unable to often defend themselves when they’re criticised, but, generally, I think in New Zealand we have a legal profession that is very well-respected around the world because of our very great, excellent teachers and commitment to access to justice. They do a great job and we’re very lucky.

So this bill does increase the number of High Court judges. Unfortunately, my colleague who is now with us in the House—Greg O’Connor—did put forward an even better proposal, which was to increase the cap of judges to 65, which is a marginal increase compared with what the Minister had suggested through an amendment that was agreed by the Government at committee stage, and then, regretfully, the bill was recommitted to the committee stage and that was reversed. I think that’s a missed opportunity, because there is a significant need and we know that we must be able to have these cases heard in a timely manner; especially when we’re dealing with criminal matters, we know that timeliness is essential in order to have a fair result for people. We know that there is lots of evidence to suggest that eyewitness accounts in things like criminal trials are often impeded and impacted by the process of time. If we are in a situation where we have more judges, we’re more likely to be able to hear those in a timely manner. So that is something that we support. Regretfully, the Government decided to change their minds, belatedly, in supporting Greg O’Connor’s excellent amendment. However, this is still a very good step forward in relation to increasing the number of judges that we do have.

It also covers a number of other things. I don’t have a very long call, so, regretfully, I’m not able to go through the seven key changes that this bill does make. But just to pick up on a couple of ones that I think are quite interesting, and that my colleague Duncan Webb referred to, are the increased powers that judges have in relation to vexatious litigants and the abusive process. It’s a really tricky issue and not easy for judges to determine at all. My experience is that there are genuinely vexatious claimants occasionally, but there are also people who have a really clear legal need and are unable to articulate that in a way that is usually accepted by the court. So I want to put on the record that these new powers that are put in place in relation to abusive process and vexatious litigants are used sparingly and only in very clear examples. I have absolute faith in the judiciary that they’re able to ascertain whether one case is a vexatious litigant or an abusive process or someone who maybe is not the most articulate person and thinks that the more communication they send the more convincing their case will be; those people deserve access to justice as well. So I just would encourage that those new powers are used with the right degree of seriousness. Thank you.

The Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill presents practical changes aimed at improving the timeliness, the much-needed timeliness, of judicial processes, increasing the number of High Court judges and District Court judges so that they’re enabled to consolidate pre-trial processes, and coronial inquiries that may be closed when deemed appropriate. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Merry Christmas to you and to the House—and given that it is the Christmas season, I thought I’d take a very small amount of licence to tell the House my favourite Christmas joke, which is—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Licence granted, as long as it’s above board.

VANUSHI WALTERS:—what do you call Santa’s helpers?

Hon Chris Penk: Subordinate Clauses.

VANUSHI WALTERS: That’s right—another lawyer—subordinate Clauses.

We made it to the last sitting day, and we also made it to the third reading of this bill, which is very exciting because it almost looked like it might not happen after the wee whoopsie in the House last week. I do think it was a bit of a missed opportunity on the part of the Government, because Greg O’Connor’s suggestion, in my view, did address a very live issue in the courts in terms of capacity. It was good to hear from the Minister in the chair that he genuinely considered leaving it as it was, but I do think it was a big missed opportunity. In many respects, there are a lot of issues of delay that are currently occurring in our justice system, so while this bill goes some way to addressing a handful of those issues, it doesn’t address the entirety of the set of issues in front of us in the justice system.

As others have pointed out, not only are the Government passing a variety of legislation that will indeed clog up the system—including the Electoral Amendment Bill, which I’ve said a few times now will return to the House and, in my view, will spark some litigation—but I did note that in this year’s Budget, there was also a decrease in the number of decision makers at the Human Rights Review Tribunal. It’s gone down, I believe, from five to three decision makers. In that tribunal, it’s already the case that if you were to file a case in regards to privacy or a health and disability matter or a discrimination matter, it could take two to three years to get to a decision, so there are significant delays in other parts of the system.

We’ve also had the Chief Justice speak to issues in legal aid—and, of course, there is a legal aid review that is currently happening. However, the question is, really, once that review is complete and recommendations are made, whether steps will be taken by the Government to address those recommendations as well. At the end of the day, if you fix the issue of not enough judges in the courts but you do nothing to address issues of access to justice, we will continue to have that slow-down or continue to have people just not being able to resolve their legal issues.

Another issue that’s come up in this space—I visited the Manawatū Community Law Centre when I was down in the beautiful Palmerston North, and one of the issues we spoke about was the growth of people who were representing themselves in litigation, and that that was leading to a delay in the courts as well, but also a sense of some frustration in terms of the Family Court but also the District Court, and, certainly, in relation to other matters as well. There is a way of addressing and helping those people; the Auckland Community Law Centre, for example, ran a programme for some time that helped people who were representing themselves in the courts. They would actually place a lawyer in the courts to help people navigate the system. Those other issues are very much live issues that I hope the Government will turn its mind to in the new year.

This bill, though, is a good bill, and we are supporting it. It makes a number of amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. This is the part that amends to allow appeals to the Court of Appeal—though a judge can make that direction straight away. It also makes amendments to the Coroners Act 2006, and others have spoken to the fact that the coroner is now able to close matters if new information has come to light where the coroner deems that an investigation is no longer warranted. I would just note here that we had, I thought, rather a significant petition come to us in the last Parliament on this issue, where families were very concerned about the time that it was taking to get through the process. While this may well address that issue for some families, the other concern I do have is that other families may have a concern that a matter that they had wanted to be considered by a coroner isn’t. The families that came to us were concerned about delay because there were issues such as finality, of course, but also access to life insurance payments. For other families, there are true questions about cause of death. That is sensitive, and so I do think that that’s a provision that we will absolutely need to monitor.

On the issue of whether we got the number of judges correct, the Law Society did submit on this and noted the increase to our population, which other members have commented on. I do think that is another factor that we need to monitor. I did ask the Parliamentary Library, when this bill came up initially, just out of curiosity, how we compared internationally in terms of numbers of judges. Per 100,000 of population—and this isn’t just in relation to High Court Judges—New Zealand has 4.75 judges. A few other countries to compare to: Bulgaria has 32 judges per 100,000; Iceland has 16; the UK has 6.7; the Netherlands has 14; and the Holy See has 3,229 judges per 100,000 population—very fascinating. It’s quite a broad range, but I do think there are questions about whether our number is right, not just for the High Court but across our tribunals and courts. If we have clogs in the system where there are what I would call everyday legal matters—so in our layer of tribunals—then that would mean that most people aren’t having their matters resolved as quickly as possible. You might have very serious cases going through the High Court and more High Court judges appointed, and they get resolved more quickly, but we still need to address the tribunal-level delays as well.

Other people have raised the issue of plainly abusive litigants, and while the proposals in this bill will speed up the process and allow judges to make those decisions that those cases cannot proceed, I have two concerns on this issue: the first, takes us back to the increasing number of self-represented litigants in the courts. Obviously, there are people who are very frustrated about legal matters. Sometimes there is a conflation in terms of mental health issues as well that brings them to that place where they’re frequently filing, so I do think there’s a degree of sensitivity that we need to have towards those litigants. It potentially points to an expansion of something like the community law centre model of a help system for those litigants and having advocates in the court to help walk them through a process, so they avoid this kind of strike-out action.

The other issue that I have with that particular set of changes is that once you’re struck out, you’re struck out for a period of three years. That seems quite considerable, to me. The restriction or rule is such that it doesn’t matter if you’re filing in relation to a completely different matter or not, or the merits of that matter. It’s all on the basis of your history of being struck out, and I do think that that’s quite an extraordinary step to take, in many respects. The current law is drafted more narrowly in terms of what can be struck out—so, again, I would say that that is a provision that we definitely should continue to monitor, just to ensure that it is fair to the individuals who are bringing those claims and that we aren’t needlessly denying people their opportunity for access to justice, essentially.

At the end of the day, we do support his bill. I think anything that helps speed up our justice system in a fair way is a useful piece of legislation for us to have on the books, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to be the last or maybe the second to last speaker on this bill, on this eve before we go on our Christmas break. Essentially, this bill increases the number of High Court judges, improves the operation of senior and District Courts, and grants coroners more power to close inquiries. The bill aims to better focus judicial time on critical matters like serious criminal cases, because on this side of the House, victims come first. Merry Christmas, Meri Kirihimete, and in my mother tongue: Milad majeed.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te Whare. I’m glad to stand this afternoon to speak to the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill—it took me awhile; I practised that quite a bit, that word. My son was helping me. You all know him. He’s a lawyer. His name is Eru Kapa-Kingi. Anyway, I just thought I’d add that in as a bit of Christmas cheer. Let me start this way: the word “timeliness” sounds good, and we all like that because we always, in our roles, want to try to capture time and control it. Unfortunately, my view is that, in fact, it will accelerate harm. I can see some good intention here, but I don’t believe that it goes far enough and understands the deeper issues which are more systemic.

This bill talks about efficiency, about streamlining, and about reducing backlogs. When you increase the number of High Court judges, when you fast-track processes, when you tighten rules around so-called abusive civil proceedings, you are not addressing the root causes. You’re smoothing the dying pillow. You’re building more capacity, and history tells us what happens: “When you build it, they will come.” More judges, more courtrooms, more prison beds—that’s not justice; that’s expansion of a system that already disproportionately impacts Māori. We’ve heard the phrase “Justice delayed is justice denied”. I proffer that “Justice rushed is justice denied too.” That’s what this bill risks doing. It risks prioritising speed over substance and, particularly, efficiency over equity. It risks silencing complex claims under the guise of striking out plainly abusive proceedings.

Yes, the backlog is real. COVID-19 left us with over 140,000 delayed appearances. People are waiting—sometimes in fear, sometimes in trauma—for their day in court. That erodes trust in the system, but trust isn’t rebuilt by tinkering at the edges; trust is rebuilt by addressing why the system fails in the first place—underfunded legal aid, systemic bias, sentencing laws that strip away judicial discretion, and the removal of section 27 reports, that once gave judges a full picture of the person before them. Ironically, those changes have made things slower and more expensive.

While others will stand and say, “I commend this bill to the House”, I say, pause, think, and ask yourself: who benefits from the speed and who pays the price? If we don’t, we’ll keep connecting the same dots: more judges, more prisons, more Māori behind bars. That is not justice; that is failure dressed up as progress. Amongst that, please, let me wish everyone a safe and loving and whānau Christmas and New Year. Tēnā tātou.