Sasha Borissenko: The rising total of court cases delayed

New Zealand's justice system is full of complexity, writes Sasha Borissenko. Photo / NZME

OPINION:

The 20 working-day time-limit requirement under section 15 of the Official Information Act 1982 - which is to be a maximum, not a target - is excruciating for a plethora of reasons. It puts pressure on bureaucrats who have to painstakingly hunt down the necessary people that are operating in silos, I imagine.

Then there's the hideous reality that by the time people - typically journalists - receive the requested information, a month has passed and the information is literally out of date.

Ironically it's not the month-long lag that's at fault in this column, but my failure to write up figures relating to court delays requested in April. What's more, said request required a further request, which meant the whole process had to be repeated. I'm exhausted thinking about it.

Nevertheless, 140,468 court cases were adjourned or rescheduled in the District Court between March 21 2020 and April 2022. Of those, 1196 were jury trials. These numbers do not reflect the number of victims, witnesses, complainants, families, court staff, lawyers et al impacted by the delays or costs incurred for all parties.

Even the Law Society recently issued guidance to lawyers to help relieve some of the pressures facing the court system.

According to ministerial relations and services manager Jenna Bottcher Hansen, the Ministry of Justice manages and supports the Criminal Process Improvement Programme.

The cross-agency initiative chaired by Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu aims to reduce the backlog in the criminal jurisdiction of the District Court. Details of the three-year pilot were not specified in the OIA.

The Labour Government has put aside $11m for the pilot as per Budget 2022. Hilariously, I sourced these figures via the official website of the NZ Government, not the Ministry of Justice.

Court delays have existed long before Covid-19 entered the Antipodes. Some cases are afforded a higher priority than others because of the type of offending and the circumstances, Hansen said.

For example, trials of alleged offenders awaiting trial in custody, cases involving sexual violation, or those where children or young people are concerned are given a high priority.

Different types of proceedings also have different demands on preparation and hearing time. A case where a defendant pleads guilty at an early stage before trial can usually promptly proceed to sentencing. A jury trial, however, can take a lot of preparation and hearing time.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has only exacerbated delays to the court process, Hansen said.

The laborious OIA process left many questions unanswered. What's happened to those people waiting for their court cases to be heard, for example? Has there been a floodgate of people sitting in makeshift jails for months on end? And how much has this cost the public? Cue my second OIA.

According to ministerial relations and services team leader Emma Whalley, the courts are independent in their case management and decision-making powers. Any decisions regarding the progression of cases are judicial decisions and will depend on the specific circumstances of the case.

"The Ministry does not hold any official information relevant to this request. Therefore, I must refuse this request under section 18(e) of the Act on the grounds that the information does not exist."

Court services are delivered as part of the established operations in the District Court and draw on the existing resources of the District Court. There are no specific costs that are identifiable as being incurred exclusively for the delivery of these events, Whalley said.

"There are many interwoven factors that impact the costs of court events. Providing this information would require the creation of new information that would involve expert skills and checking. This is not required under the Act."

On the issue of make-shift jails, the decision to remand people in custody is made by the judiciary. The ministry does not hold any official information relating to changes in remand rates caused by Covid-19 delays, Whalley said.

"While the ministry does hold data on the number of people remanded in custody, this cannot be linked to 'delays' as this is not specifically recorded in the case management system. Therefore, I must refuse this request under section 18(e) of the act on the grounds that the information does not exist."

For fear of lodging OIAs with every agency known to man - and to get April 2022 information in 10 years' time - I decided to call it quits. In theory, I could seek redress from the Ombudsman, where complaints relating to public service agencies increased by 19 per cent in the six months to December 2021.

Since 2016, the volume of requests has increased 110 per cent. Just 0.15 per cent of all OIA responses resulted in a finding of deficiency. These December 2021 figures were released in March.

Feeling deflated by this Dickens-esque - even Darwinian - endeavour, I sought relief in the form of "inspirational" quotes online. "One of the greatest threats to mankind today is that the world may be choked by an explosively pervading but well camouflaged bureaucracy," Norman Borlaug.