Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I present the legislative statement on the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill, and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 23 September 2025.

The justice system needs to be able to deal with cases efficiently and fairly, and bring timely resolution for all court parties and participants—which is why this Government is committed to improving timeliness and reducing delays in the courts. New Zealand’s courts are currently experiencing delays, duplication, and proceedings that impede the process of the courts.

The Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill addresses these challenges by maximising judicial resource to improve court timeliness. These changes will reduce duplication and unnecessary churn, and deliver efficiencies not only for the courts but also for partners across the system, including Police and Corrections. Importantly, these changes benefit the people who use the courts: defendants, victims, witnesses, whānau, bereaved families—they’ll all get closure more quickly so they can move on with their lives. The changes will also reduce stress and costs for people associated with defending meritless litigation.

The bill is an omnibus bill that makes changes across three Acts. The bill is being introduced alongside the Government’s Budget package as the changes either directly link to a Budget initiative or are required to manage cost pressures across the justice system. Court timeliness is expected to reduce costs and the resources required across the justice sector over time, and to ultimately drive savings and efficiencies.

Firstly, the bill increases the number of High Court judges that may be appointed from 55 to 57. The maximum number of judges is set in legislation and has not changed in over 20 years, despite the workload of the High Court steadily increasing. These additional judges will better enable the High Court to manage its workload and help to ensure the most serious matters are heard in a timely manner.

The bill also maximises judicial resource and improves timeliness through changes that will enable civil proceedings that abuse court process, the criminal pre-trial procedures, and appeals to be better managed. In the senior courts, there is an increase in proceedings that are plainly an abuse of process of the courts, which take up valuable judicial time and resource. These proceedings can also cause stress and cost to the other parties involved. The bill will enable abusive proceedings from vexatious litigants to be disposed of quickly by a single judge, allowing judicial attention to be focused on legitimate civil proceedings and reducing the burden on other parties to the proceedings. Vexatious litigants who repeatedly abuse the process of the courts will also be barred from bringing civil proceedings for three years.

The bill makes improvements to pre-trial case management in the District Court to drive efficiency and to reduce delays. Currently, multiple charges against the same defendant are often filed and proceeded with in different courts. This means the defendant can have court appearances at several locations, potentially involving multiple prosecutors, legal aid lawyers, and transport to different courts. The bill reduces duplication at this pre-trial stage by enabling a judge to require multiple charges against the same defendant to be case-managed together in one District Court office. Timeliness benefits created through this change will be felt across the system.

The bill will also make sure appeals from District Court trials are heard by the most appropriate court. Many appeals related to the District Court judge-alone trials go to the High Court for determination, but appeals relating to the District Court jury trials go above the High Court to the Court of Appeal. These appeals must be heard by a panel of three senior judges, which is time- and resource-intensive because the level of appeal court is based on whether the defendant elected a jury trial or not, rather than the nature of the appeal itself. Some of these appeals could be appropriately heard in the High Court. Therefore, the bill enables one Court of Appeal judge to determine if an appeal from a District Court decision should be referred to the High Court for determination, rather than being heard by a panel of three judges in the Court of Appeal.

Finally, this bill improves timeliness in the coroner’s court. Currently, a coroner is not able to close an inquiry once opened, even if new information or a change in circumstances mean the inquiry is no longer appropriate. The bill will enable this to allow judicial attention to be focused on necessary inquiries and, importantly, this will mean that bereaved family and friends will have closure more quickly.

From the outset, this Government has been clear about its commitment to an efficient and effective justice system. These changes will collectively improve court timeliness across multiple jurisdictions, and I’m confident they will enable cases to be progressed more quickly across the system. I look forward to the Justice Committee’s consideration of this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We support this to select committee, but I just would observe that here we are in Budget urgency on a Saturday night with legislation which simply isn’t urgent. It’s yet another example of this Government abusing parliamentary procedure.

But, having said that, here we are. Our job is to scrutinise this legislation. This is legislation which is about as routine as you get. We’ve seen it yesterday. We’ve had a look at it and we formed a view that we should vote in favour of it going to select committee. High Court judges numbers: we accept that they haven’t gone up for a while. They probably need to keep up roughly with population, roughly with the amount of litigation going through the High Court forum, and so it’s very hard to disagree with that.

Vexatious litigants is the second aspect of this, and we accept that vexatious litigants are challenging and that it’s entirely appropriate to have a look at the rules. And we’re glad that this is going to select committee, because we want to look at it closely because there are a class of litigants who are difficult people, who frame their claims very poorly, but there’s something in them. Now, just because you’re a difficult person who’s hard to get on with and is perhaps obstructive and annoying, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a right to go to court. If you’ve got a good claim, it should get there.

So the question about vexatious litigants is where you draw the line between what is an absolutely unmeritorious claim brought in an inappropriate way—and I think you have to have both those strands: both the way in which it’s brought and it being unmeritorious. You’ve got to remember there are plenty of claims which would have been thought as unmeritorious but, ultimately, won the day. Simpson v Attorney-General is the classic example, where it was found that there were damages for an illegal search in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There was no established right in the law, but, ultimately, the courts recognised that if there was a right to be free from search and seizure, there must be a remedy. But it was brought responsibly. So you’ve got to have both of those things: an absolutely unmeritorious claim and a vexatious litigant as well.

District Court case management: I want to look at the detail. I haven’t had a chance to look at the detail, but there is a principle in New Zealand and across the common law world that you get tried, essentially, by your peers in the place where the offence occurred. Whilst if you get into trouble in Queenstown and in Auckland, I can see the administrative efficiency of having it managed in Auckland, say—but at the end of the day, the defendant needs to have a say to make sure that they are tried in the community in which they caused the harm. That’s part of it. It’s actually quite a visceral thing. So that’s the third thing that this does.

And then the fourth aspect of this legislation or this bill is the Court of Appeal being able to remit matters back to the High Court on appeal. Now, jury matters in the District Court can be very serious matters. They can hear matters from which would follow, if convicted, very serious sentences—sentences of three years or more that would ultimately be sentenced in the High Court. That’s why they go, ultimately, to the Court of Appeal, because while the trial might happen in the District Court, the sentencing would happen in the High Court. So, again, I can see what’s going on. I can see that the Court of Appeal has a heavy criminal cases workload, but I’m not sure that this is the fix yet, and that’s why this shouldn’t be under urgency. That’s why we should have had more time to look at this, because these are actually relatively important, largely criminal justice, matters.

So, yes, we’re going to support it, but this isn’t the forum, this isn’t the time. Let’s see if this makes sense and we’ll have a good look when it gets to select committee.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill, and I feel like my portfolios are getting a good workout tonight—seniors, trade, and now justice. What a shame that we didn’t manage to get on to the committee stage of the Invest New Zealand Bill. I was looking forward to that.

But on this bill, in terms of the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill, there are three components—well, technically four components—to this. Starting with the Senior Courts Act 2016—I acknowledge the fact that this is an omnibus bill, and I do thank the Minister for giving us the opportunity to scrutinise this in the Justice Committee.

Now, when it comes to the Senior Courts Act, I agree with the other speakers that, yes, the number of High Court judges in Aotearoa New Zealand hasn’t increased in a little while, and this bill does increase the number of High Court judges from 55 to 57, which is much needed, particularly on the back of previous legislation we have seen that increases the number of District Court judges by one. But I also feel like—and particularly with the way that the Government is progressing a number of justice-based legislation—it does raise the question of whether adding even two more senior court judges in the form of High Court is sufficient in terms of the workload that we anticipate or expect, particularly when we haven’t seen, in this bill, an increase in the number of Court of Appeal judges, as well as Supreme Court judges.

But, overall, the increased number of High Court judges by two is good. For the Greens, I think our biggest concern is around the automatic restraint for vexatious litigation. I think, from our perspective, this is the part that we are really looking forward to, in the select committee: getting a chance to ask legal experts, as well as officials, to give more detail about the breadth of the impact that this would have on people. As the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Duncan Webb, has already mentioned, there are some concerns and fish-hooks around this automatic restraint. I think I particularly found that, out of all of our debates today, the term “unmeritorious” is probably my favourite word so far. So that is something that, probably, from the Greens’ perspective, is the greatest concern for us.

Moving on to other elements of the bill, when we’re looking at the criminal procedures as well as the coroners, I think, in both cases, they are making important recommendations and looking at something that will potentially assist the backlog and the work that our current court system is currently doing, which is to ensure multiple District Court charges can be heard in one court office, allowing coroners to close an inquiry when a change of circumstance is deemed appropriate. I think all of those things are things that we are interested in finding out, and learning more about, through the committee stage as well. But, on the surface, it seems to support having better resourcing but also better processes and more streamlined processes within our court system.

I think it is really important when we’re looking at the way that we do justice or at the trajectory of justice here in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly in light of some of the recent challenges around access to court and also in terms of the digitalisation of the court system, which is long overdue—I think this bill is something that moves towards having a better system. However, we cannot forget the fundamental issue that, within our court system, we do need to properly fund and resource the system, rather than simply just looking at—I mean, optimisation is important, but the funding part is something that the court system has been asking for for a little while now.

So it will be good, for myself and also for others, to dig into Budget 2025 as well to see what is available there. But, on the Budget, the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, does support it to select committee on the basis that there are some really good things that the bill does—I think, most importantly, like I mentioned, the increase of the number of High Court judges. But the thing that we will be scrutinising, moreover, is the automatic restraint of vexatious litigation.

I’m so proud to stand up in support of this bill, and, essentially, it’s going to allow the judiciary to focus on cases that matter the most—another way that our Government is putting victims first. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Judicature (Timeliness) Legislation Amendment Bill. This is a significant programme of work, and I acknowledge Minister Goldsmith, who has put this bill together and is driving this programme of work. It’s complex. There’s a lot of moving parts. It is essential. It is, again, an indication of this Government tackling things that have been kicked down the road for a long period of time. We commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou. It is a complicated area. Even the word I struggle to say, just by the way. But the word I don’t struggle to say is “timeliness”. Improving timeliness in this context is not the way to get it right. What you need to improve is the system, the deeper system and how it functions and why it dysfunctions. Making it faster, making it smoother—you may as well just say it’s fast tracking more Māori into prisons. That’s what it sounds like; that’s what it feels like. Sadly, it’s another dot to connect to all the other bills that have been rammed through by them in the last two days. So fast track—well, it is a fast track. It’s fast tracking Māori into prison. Way to go. [Interruption]

Here’s the other part to it, and you need to hear this. So this is the teaching moment. More judges, we’ve not got more judges, right? And then you build another bed extension in a prison, and then you put $149 billion capacity: you are building it and they will come—you are building it and they will come. That is the context. You won’t understand it, and I’ve already told you why. The fact that you ignore it, I don’t understand; that’s just your privilege blinding you to these ideas, and I hope—but stick with me. But that’s important. It’s important because to understand what I’m saying, you’ve got to have some history and some understanding about this, but you do not—but you do not. [Interruption]

Look, it’s OK. I’m happy to keep talking and ignore the nattering. This will disproportionately impact Māori. This is about streamlining the process.

Joseph Mooney: This is about speeding justice up.

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: This is what was known—and Joseph will know this—as smoothing the dying pillow of Māori. This is fast tracking Māori into prisons. [Interruption] This is—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Shh!

MARIAMENO KAPA-KINGI: Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is smoothing the dying pillow. It might disturb you on the inside and look, ka aroha [condolences] to you, but you need to hear this. The fact that you get all fluffed and you go, “No, that’s not what we’re doing, Maria. We’re nice white people. We’re good. We’re not the bad ones. We’re the good ones.”—don’t do that to yourself. Pause for a minute and think, “Nah, Mariameno, she’s smart enough. She’s worked in this area.” I know this. I know this from the inside out.

I doubt if any of you on my left really know what this is like; I do. I do. I used to work in the prisons. I understand what it sounds like, feels like, what it smells like. I understand this—understand the system of it. So do not talk to me and do not be beguiled by your nonsense in your head that you think I don’t know. I would undo any of you in a debate around this out in the corridor. Trust me, you will fail and I will win. [Interruption] You will fail and I will win. I know this better than anyone. So I’ll leave that with you just to fester on and, hopefully, haunt your dreams because you need to know this. You need to know this.

This is me, a very able, willing, experienced Māori person telling you that you are screwing up majorly. So you know, well, it’s certainly—it’s like these little nonsenses: “Oh, I really think this is a great bill and I commend it to the House.” Who on earth talks like that? You sound like a three-year-old.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much, and, hopefully, the nattering and childish giggling on the left, they will understand. They’ll get it one day, one hopes. Kia ora.

Thank you. I’m just going to remark that, yes, we don’t overuse the word “you” in this House, but there were that many teachers coming from over the other side that I didn’t feel the need to correct at that point of time. But it is a good reminder.

The defence rests. I’m not sure which bill that one was about, but this one’s about timeliness in the courts. We had six years of the backlog building up. It’s stabilised now, but we want to improve timeliness, and, to that end, I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As my colleague Dr Duncan Webb has said, we will be supporting this through to select committee. I think, as a former chair of the Justice Committee—and I see some other colleagues, the Hon Nicole McKee in the House as well. In the last term of Parliament, we were frequently hit with issues of delay in the courts and it was something that concerned us cross-party, whether it be in the Family Court or in others. Often in a criminal setting, it was a matter of concern for both parties when there was delay in the courts. So in regard to the increase in the number of judges, my initial view is that that seems entirely appropriate. We’re looking at an increase from 55 to 57. I think the only questioning I’ll have at the select committee at that stage is what determined that number and whether that’s sufficient in terms of looking at the backlog.

Hon Chris Bishop: That is a legitimately good question.

VANUSHI WALTERS: Thank you to the Hon Chris Bishop. I think that is a question we should address. I guess part of the reason why I’d address that question is that it’s been 20 years since we’ve increased the number of judges in the High Court. So the question is how we landed on that precise number of two.

I think, in terms of some of the Government contributions that this is a simple bill and it’s just about that question of efficiency, that’s actually just not true when you read the bill. There are multiple aspects to it, and I think it’s important in the House if, when we speak on bills, we acknowledge every part of the bill. So first part: yes, I agree; the second part: my colleague from Te Pāti Māori raises a very valid point. There are issues in terms of the balance of justice and different rights in this space. That is what the criminal system is about. We cannot deny it in this House. We must always be attuned to what presents in New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vets.

Here, I just echo the comments from the Hon Dr Duncan Webb. There are very live issues here in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. The problem in terms of the way in which this has been introduced is that it doesn’t allow sufficient time for the Opposition to engage with the Attorney-General’s section 7 report. If you wondered what I was doing, scrambling on my computer just then, I was looking for the section 7 report. It is important that all sides of the House review those issues before we consider what we want to make law in this country.

So it’s not an objection from me; it’s just a request that the Government look to going through diligent process for issues that prima facie touch the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which this absolutely does in terms of further limiting an ability to raise a claim or have an appeal in the House. Again, I’m not saying that it’s not warranted, but we certainly need to examine that, as well.

Perhaps just the other issue that I was looking at in terms of—there’s a collection of issues that this bill is looking to amend. There’s also one on the Coroner’s Act 2006. Clause 20 provides for a new power for a coroner to close an inquiry they’ve opened if a change in circumstances or new information means that it’s no longer appropriate to complete an inquiry. I’m just highlighting that point because, again, colleagues who were in the last Parliament will be aware that we had several issues come to us in regards to the Coroner’s Court. It is an area where there is a lot of public interest, it’s an area where there is a lot of personal feeling, and I do think when we’re giving powers to a coroner to be able to close an inquiry for any reason, we just need to examine what public sentiment and what the public feeling is around the parameters that we’re putting into legislation.

So I do look forward to a robust select committee process and, no doubt, many submitters who we may have seen before in terms of some of these issues. We will be supporting this bill through to the first reading and, hopefully, address some of the questions that we have at the select committee stage. But if not, then I’m sure that there will be robust questioning of this bill at committee stage as well. Madam Chair, thank you. We will be supporting it to select committee.

New Zealand elected this Government in order to restore law and order. It’s been 20 years since the number of High Court judges has been increased. This is a practical step in order for us to deliver on that promise. I commend the bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. As I rise to consider this piece of legislation, it was interesting to listen to the debate across the House—some more cohesive than others—but it was interesting to listen and to be in a space where, over a number of days, to actually come to a point of agreeance where we are comfortable to support this in the first reading to take it to select committee, where it rightfully should be, in a place where it can actually have its robust process. I often talk about our small and our agile and swift democracy here in Aotearoa, and how it can actually go to a select committee and be discussed and be unpacked, pulled apart, and put together—and, hopefully, in a better shape—for it to come back into the House for us to debate again.

As I listened to my colleagues on this side of the House—I listened to the Hon Dr Duncan Webb and to Vanushi Walters—it was just interesting to understand some of what this legislation does and the reasons that we support it. As I was listening—and we’ve heard from a number of speakers around the Coroners Act of 2006—but as we look at that and the changes that this legislation will make, it’s the reality that these are people’s lives that we’re talking about. Yes, this is legislation; these are words, these are laws, these are changes we’re making to how we move forward. But when you have the Coroners Act 2006, it’s actually people’s lives and families that we need to consider the impacts on, and so that’s why we are happy to continue and support it.

Then we look at population growth and look at the senior court judges. Obviously, as our population continues to rise—it’s a no-brainer, of course: with the rise of population comes, unfortunately, a rise in the need for people to be in the court system and the fact that we need to consider upping the numbers of High Court judges—the first time, as was said just before, within 20 years.

Then we look at the Act, as it is, around vexatious litigants. This is something I had to read up on. I am no expert on the courts, I will admit, although I’ve spent a lot of time in court—

Hon Chris Bishop: Oh!

GLEN BENNETT: —supporting people. “Whoa”—exciting, eh? But I’ve spent a lot of time in court supporting people. I’ve been in court supporting victims. I spent a lot of time in court supporting offenders. I spent a lot of time in court as a restorative justice facilitator. So I know the District Court well. I know its proceedings and how it works, the ins and outs of it. But we’re looking at, obviously, some High Court stuff here. When it comes to the vexatious litigant, we need to find that balance to make sure there are legitimate cases, that people aren’t playing the system, that people aren’t creating more harm with their frivolous—with things without merit or, indeed, causing hurt and harm, which can actually be part of the court system, which we need to do our best to protect fiercely, because so often, for a victim of crime, the vulnerability of stepping into that courtroom is a place that is not easy for anybody. So we need to make sure that they are protected to the highest degree and ensure that legislation in this place is fit for purpose and will protect people—that is important. I’ve seen that many times in my role as a restorative justice facilitator.

My final thoughts are around the Criminal Procedure Act of 2011. Now, as I was looking through the legislation and getting my head around this—I don’t sit on the Justice Committee, but I think it’s always good, in this place, to learn and understand the breadth of knowledge you pick up when you have random legislation that isn’t in your wheelhouse. Just looking at the Court of Appeal—relating to the District Court decisions to be heard by a court at the appropriate level. I think it’s important when we look at the “appropriate level” because, often, the paperwork and, I want to say, almost the binary space of our judicial—judicial—I can’t even say the word—“that system”—is the fact—

Hon Member: It’s getting late.

GLEN BENNETT: Yeah, it is late. We’ve got to get it right, so the fact that we’ve got to find appropriate levels to do that I think is important, that’s why we’ll support it to select committee.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. This is a short, sharp, and very pragmatic proposed piece of legislation, and therefore I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is,

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.

Instruction to the Justice Committee