Supreme Court to hear lawyers' immunity case

The Supreme Court has granted leave to appeal against a decision that allowed barristers to be sued for negligent conduct in civil court cases.

In a split decision in March, four judges of the Court of Appeal decided that an Auckland couple could go ahead and sue a lawyer they said wrongly let a court make a decision against them.

Until then, lawyers could not be sued on allegations of negligence for what they had done or not done during a case in court, or something closely related to the court work, under a rule called "barristerial immunity".

In a decision yesterday, the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal on the question of whether the defence based on barristerial immunity was rightly struck out on the ground there was now no such immunity in this country.

The effect of the Court of Appeal's decision was that the common law immunity for barristers in the conduct of court proceedings was no longer the law of New Zealand, the Supreme Court said.

The Court of Appeal's decision had followed a case in which the common law immunity for barristers had been repudiated by the House of Lords.

But the High Court of Australia had declined to follow the House of Lords and had upheld continuation of barristers' immunity in Australia.

"The point raised by the appeal, whether the defence based on barristerial immunity was rightly struck out on the ground that there is now no such immunity in New Zealand, is a matter of general and public importance which is clearly appropriate for leave to appeal to this court," the Supreme Court said.

- NZPA