Civil trials clog High Court

A shortage of civil case judges has resulted in new trials before the High Court at Wellington already being scheduled into next year.

The court's civil case list was already booked for 2006, Justice Forrest Miller said yesterday.

Ministry of Justice spokesman Jeremy Seed said 16 "long-cause" civil cases - trials which ran for more than one week - in the pipelines had clogged this year's case list.

"There is no problem with criminal cases."