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People facing serious charges such as kidnapping and sexual violation are having their cases thrown out of court at a rate of nearly one a month because they are taking too long to get to trial.
In the most recent case last week, kidnapping charges were dropped against
three Chinese students because their case still had not reached trial nearly four years after the crime was allegedly committed.
It was the 69th time the courts had granted a stay of prosecution in the past seven years.
In each case, the delays in getting to trial were caused by prosecution problems, such as witnesses not being available or charges being amended, or systemic issues such as court staff or resources not being available.
National Party courts spokesman Simon Power said it was time more money was put into the courts system so that people facing charges actually stood trial.
He said in 74 per cent of the cases where people had walked free, systemic problems were either completely or partially responsible.
"This is most concerning because some of these charges are serious and these people are not even going before the courts," he said.
"The kidnapping case is a prime example ... Their case was finally halted because of a lack of court staff."
Mr Power said far too much money had been invested in items such as landscaping new prisons which would have been better directed at ensuring there were sufficient resources so trials could proceed within a reasonable timeframe. "The big question that goes unanswered in all of this is how do the victims of those crimes feel when they read the trial has been abandoned because the court system has got systemic failures?"
Auckland District Law Society council member Gary Gotlieb said the number of cases being abandoned was small compared with the total number going through the system each year.
While there were a number of reasons trials were delayed, it was not easy getting a stay of prosecution granted.
"They aren't given out willy-nilly, I can assure you of that.
"Of the applications that are made, probably one in 50 or 100 get granted, so it's not common."
Part of the problem was the growing number of a cases coming before the courts and the drop in time judges spent in the courtroom due to case management.
One possible solution was a more robust approach from prosecutors as to what really needed to go to court in the first place.
"There's a sort of policy now of 'let the court make the decision' rather than prosecuting authorities using a bit of common sense and saying, 'Really, should we be proceeding on this? Let's see if we can sort this out'."
Courts Minister Rick Barker said he received a full report each time a stay was granted and court staff were not always to blame.
While he was never happy with any cases not reaching trial, the figures were relatively small compared with the 30,000 cases that went through the courts each year.
