Crown appeals Northland prisoner’s payout for being mistakenly detained extra 33 days

Koru Putua was mistakenly detained for 33 extra days in Northland Regional Correctional Facility following an administrative error at court. Photo / NZME

A prisoner awarded $11,000 compensation for being mistakenly detained an extra 33 days following an administrative blunder will no longer get his payout after a court overturned his entitlement.

Koro Putua was jailed in 2016 for four years and six months on 16 charges including burglary, firearm possession, and drug-related offences.

But when preparing the warrant for Putua’s incarceration, the District Court deputy registrar mistakenly recorded that a three-month sentence on one of the charges was cumulative, rather than concurrent.

This meant three months were added to Putua’s overall sentence and the error was signed off by the sentencing judge who did not notice it.

Putua reportedly told staff at Northland Regional Correctional Facility of the mistake on his arrival and maintained his release date should be November 11, 2020. But he was not released then.

Eventually, on December 14 that year, a registrar prepared a corrected warrant which the sentencing judge signed.

Putua was released that day, after serving 33 extra days behind bars.

In March 2022, he took the Crown to the High Court for compensation, arguing he had been unlawfully and arbitrarily detained for those additional days in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

The Crown accepted Putua had been detained in breach of the Act but argued the court had no jurisdiction to hear a claim for compensation arising from a judicial act, which is protected by judicial immunity.

The registrar’s decision was superseded by the judge signing the warrant of commitment and so there was no right to compensation, the Crown submitted.

But Justice Rebecca Ellis determined there was no underlying judicial error and it was the mistake of the deputy registrar.

She assessed his right to damages under the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005, and found he was entitled to $11,000 plus interest.

But the Attorney-General went on to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal, with that judgment having now been released.

The Court of Appeal took a different stance than Justice Ellis, highlighting the inconsistency in providing immunity for certain errors while holding others accountable, particularly in the context of granting immunity to the judge’s error in signing the warrant but not offering the same protection for the deputy registrar’s mistake in preparing it.

This inconsistency, the Court of Appeal stated, undermined the integrity of the judicial process.

“Registrars are employed by the executive but in relation to judicial business they are under the supervision of judges. The exposure of their employer to liability as a result of them undertaking tasks for judges creates an obvious conflict of interest, or at the very least the perception of one.”

The Court of Appeal also noted the requirement of a judge’s signature on the committal warrant.

High Court Justice Rebecca Ellis had ordered the Crown to pay Koro Putua $11,000. Photo / Simon O'Connor

“There must be some reason why a committal warrant must be signed and why only a judge can do it. And the reason is obvious. It is a safeguard as to the correctness of the warrant.

“It is an immediate cause of a prisoner being received into a particular custodial facility and it is the basis upon which that facility determines how long the detainee is to serve. In signing, a judge is effectively certifying the accuracy of the contents of the warrant. The judge endorses it ... Whether the signing judge is the sentencing judge or not, they are clearly obliged to check its contents.”

The Court of Appeal found Putua’s extended detention was caused by the deputy registrar’s error and then the judge’s failure to check the warrant.

“We therefore disagree with [Justice Ellis’] finding that the only consequence of denying immunity to registrars preparing committal warrants would be to ensure that better care would be taken. We also disagree with the suggestion that the need to shield judges who make errors from adverse publicity is regarded as a significant policy factor underpinning judicial immunity.

“We are persuaded that [Justice Ellis] was wrong to impose liability on the Crown for the deputy registrar’s error in the preparation of the warrant.

“Our conclusion that the preparation of the warrant was protected by judicial immunity for the purposes of a monetary claim under the Bill of Rights means the Crown’s appeal must be allowed and the compensatory award of the High Court set aside.”

As a result, Putua will no longer receive the money he was previously awarded.

Shannon Pitman is a Whangārei based reporter for Open Justice covering courts in the Te Tai Tokerau region. She is of Ngāpuhi/ Ngāti Pūkenga descent and has worked in digital media for the past five years. She joined NZME in 2023.