The court system will try to deal with concerns raised by an Auckland lawyer about High Court conference rooms being too small for church disputes, Courts Minister Georgina te Heuheu says.
Samoan lawyer Olinda Woodroffe, who acts for several churches throughout New Zealand, said in a letter toMrs te Heuheu that Pacific Island church disputes invariably ended in the High Court for a resolution.
But during settlement conferences, large numbers of supporters could turn up to show support for their church spokespersons and find there was not enough room for them.
She asked the minister for a large room to be allocated for judicial settlement conferences which could accommodate at least 50 people and said, as taxpayers, people were entitled to such a facility.
Mrs te Heuheu said yesterday the request was not unreasonable, but understood the High Court at Auckland dealt with about 200 settlement conferences a year and only about four involved more people than could be comfortably accommodated.
"At this point I don't know that there has been a huge disadvantage to groups."
Ms te Heuheu said there were processes where, if larger groups were expected, those groups could apply in advance to have hearings held in a larger venue.
"In those cases, it's helpful if reasonable notice can be given, and certainly I accept that sometimes it may not be possible ahead of time for parties involved to know that large numbers are going to turn
up."
She said the court system would nevertheless try to overcome issues raised by Ms Woodroffe and the ministry was in the process of responding to the letter.
Ms te Heuheu said one of the most pressing issues with Auckland's court system at the moment was the struggle to cope with the huge volumes of cases.
"There is a lot of work going on around that to try to address it."
