Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announcing the Government is moving forward with coalition promises for longer sentences. Video / Mark Mitchell
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the justice system is “imperfect” but his hands are tied due to financial restraints.
He wants to prioritise improving the time it takes for a case to go through court. “Modest progress” has been made so far.
The latest Ministry of Justice figures show the average time for a criminal case to go through the District Court is 177 days, while for a jury trial it’s 466 days.
Does everyone have access to justice who should?
“No. It’s an imperfect system,” Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith bluntly tells the Herald.
“In terms of civic justice, particularly if somebody steals $100,000 or $200,000 from your business, the system is not good at all. It’s just far too long, tooexpensive. My challenge to the sector is, surely we can come up with a more efficient way of dealing with these issues.”
This sentiment is echoed by the Law Society, which says the whole legal system is under strain.
A 2021 survey commissioned by the society found 20,000 people had been turned away from Legal Aid representation in the previous 12 months.
“The situation has not improved. It is just getting worse and worse,” society President Frazer Barton said.
“This is about access to justice. You need Legal Aid to have access to justice, which is important for the rule of law, which is important for democracy. These are often the vulnerable people in our societies, and this is criminal law, family and civil as well.
There is currently a review of the legal aid system, but the underlying problem - comparatively low pay - from the last review persists.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. Photo / Dean Purcell
Access to justice is also being potentially compromised by proposed cuts to Public Defence Service, the Public Service Association says.
Goldsmith said there were financial limits to what could be done.
“I’d love to have lots of money to throw around, but I don’t. We’ve got to try and make the system work as best as we can within the Budget we’ve got.
“So you have to ask yourself: if you’re going to put an extra $100 million into the system, what would be the best results in terms of our focus on reducing victims of crime, and what’s going to lead to the best outcome?
“I’ve got an open mind, but this Budget’s certainly pretty tough. I think the most useful thing I can do in terms of access to justice is to speed up those processes of the court so people aren’t waiting for years, which adds costs and trauma.”
‘Modest progress’ on court timeliness
When Goldsmith came into office, the average number of days to dispose of a criminal case in the District Court had grown over five years from 114 to 176 days, and for a jury trial in the District Court from 349 to 498 days.
Ministry of Justice figures for the year to February 2025 show the former rising slightly to 177 days, while the latter has dropped to 466 days — a 6.4% drop.
Meanwhile, the Chief District Court Judge has set expectations for how long a case should take to go through the court system. They are:
Within six months for category one cases (for fines or community-based sentences).
Within nine months for category two cases (for offences with a maximum penalty of less than two years’ prison).
Within six months for category three non-jury cases (for offences that carry a penalty of two or more years in prison).
Within 15 months for category three jury cases.
The goal is for 90% of cases to meet these timelines by June 2027. Currently, 81% are going through the system on time, a rate that’s been steady since mid-2023, but is below pre-pandemic levels.
81% of court cases are going through the system within expected timeframes, according to Ministry of Justice data. The goal is 90% by June 2027.
Goldsmith claimed this as a political win, though it shows the timeliness trend improving since early 2023, well before the Government took office.
“We have made modest progress,” he said.
“It was just getting longer and longer. We’ve reversed it, sort of flattened it out. We’re confident by the end of the three years, we’ll be able to point to some progress, and we will be accountable if we don’t.”
Most of the timeliness gains have been in category one cases, according to the latest Ministry of Justice annual report, while in mid-2024, only about 55% of category three jury trials were done and dusted within the expected 15 months, down from about 75% five years earlier.
Most of the improvements in court timeliness have been in category one cases, according to the latest Ministry of Justice annual report
The total active caseload had decreased by 3% over the past year, with the backlog decreasing by 9%. Most of these improvements have been in Auckland, where the backlog jumped dramatically with the extended Covid lockdown in the latter part of 2021. In the last year, the total active caseload in Auckland fell by 10%, and the backlog by 25%.
The Ministry of Justice lists several issues that impact how long a court takes to go through the system, including people pleading guilty later in the process, more people electing jury trials (which generally take longer to resolve), and more adjournments to a later date because parties aren’t ready to proceed with the case.
Several initiatives were under way to reduce delays, including limiting unnecessary adjournments.
A large backlog of court cases in Auckland is slowly being cleared, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
Goldsmith added that the Government’s recent sentencing reforms will incentivise earlier guilty pleas, while digitisation of the court system will make it more efficient.
“The courts are still paper-based. It’s incredible.”
‘Complete havoc’
Barton said the whole legal system was under strain, but fixing the legal aid system by lifting pay rates would also lead to improvements in court timeliness.
Legal Aid is Government funding for people in need of a lawyer who can’t afford one. It is considered a loan, and recipients may have to pay part or all of it back, depending on how much they earn and what property they own.
The 2023/24 budget for Legal Aid services was nearly $294m. There were almost 90,000 legal aid applications in 2023/24, 17.8% more than in the previous year, while $24.2 million was owed in Legal Aid debt — the highest annual figure ever.
Eligibility rules were widened in 2022, along with higher hourly rates, though these excluded the fixed fees that apply in a majority of cases. Barton welcomed this but said it was still well short of what’s needed. A recent Law Society survey showed the cost of running a legal practice had increased by 15% a year.
“[Pay rates are] never going to be the same as you get in private practice. But if the practitioners doing it are having trouble making ends meet, they’re going to do other work instead.”
Frazer Barton president of the New Zealand Law Society April 2023
picture supplied
https://www.lawsociety.org.nz/news/law-society-statements/frazer-barton-re-elected-as-law-society-president/
This means that more Legal Aid is falling on fewer shoulders, he said.
“In Dunedin, where I’m based, in private practice at the senior level, there’s one person under the age of 68. The consequence of not providing legal aid is you get a lot of people representing themselves, and that just creates complete havoc in the courts. It’s very inefficient.”
He noted a recent civil case involving people being sued by self-representing litigants, which should have been thrown out as it had “no basis at all”.
“We then had it struck out. The other party refused to accept that, and then kept appealing and appealing and appealing. It ended up being a very costly exercise for my client, probably five times as much as they should have spent because they had someone self-representing on the other side.”
The financial restraint the Government is imposing on itself should not deprioritise fixing legal aid, he said.
“If people are well represented, then the court operates much, much more efficiently, and is more timely as a result. All these things are connected. The minister appreciates there’s a problem. It’s a question of how funding is prioritised.”
Goldsmith questioned whether simply lifting pay rates for Legal Aid lawyers would be a quick fix.
“It’s not just a simple matter of extra money. It’s how it’s delivered, how efficient the whole system is, how much time people spend trying to navigate the system as opposed to just getting the money and getting on with it.
“We are reviewing the legal aid as part of the process, and that’s going to be happening this year and they’ll come up with some conclusions.”
Government announcements about legal aid are expected next year, after the current review is completed.
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Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the Press Gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.
