Govt releases proposals on criminal procedure review

Details of the Government's proposed reforms of the criminal justice sector have been released by Justice Minister Simon Power.

The Criminal Procedure (Simplification) Project includes a range of initiatives to improve timeliness and efficiency in criminal court cases.

Mr Power says the initiatives are designed to produce a more efficient and simplified criminal process.

"A complete overhaul of New Zealand’s criminal procedure is long overdue.

"The time has come to reform legislation in a way that ensures all parties in the criminal justice system are better served by improving efficiency, reducing delay and costs, and better using technology where appropriate.

"We need to reconsider some of the traditional practices of the court system.

"Court waiting times are at an unacceptable level. The median waiting time for District Court trials is one year, and for High Court trials it's 16½ months."

The Criminal Procedure (Simplification) Project is being undertaken to address a number of long-standing inefficiencies and issues with pre-trial criminal procedure, including:

 

Repeated adjournments.

Unnecessary appearances to deal with matters that should have been addressed out of court.

Late guilty pleas that result in inefficient use of court time.

Trials that fail to proceed on their scheduled date.

Inadequate incentives and sanctions to ensure that prosecution and defence progress the case as they should.

Long delays before the final disposal of cases.

A trial system in which relatively minor cases may be tried by jury.

Barriers to the use of modern technologies and an excessively paper-based process.

An excessively complex and outdated legislative framework.

"These problems not only create inefficiency but frequently cause inconvenience and fail to deliver justice to victims, witnesses, and others in the community," Mr Power says. The proposals include:

 

Requiring parties to discuss cases in an attempt to resolve them, so unnecessary court appearances can be avoided and trial time can be shortened.

Changing the process to determine whether jury trials are held in the High Court or the District Court.

Requiring the defence to identify issues in dispute so the court can focus on those issues at trial.

Removing the prosecution’s ability to choose a jury trial for something that could go to summary trial, and potentially raising the jury trial threshold from more than three months to more than three years (or more).

Making clearer rules for proceeding in the absence of the defendant.

Introducing legislation to enable the different participants in criminal proceedings to appear by audio-visual link.

"The proposed changes are expected to result in less delay, fewer adjournments, shorter trials, a more satisfactory process for victims and witnesses, and increased efficiencies within the system.

"This will have benefits for, victims, witnesses, taxpayers defendants and counsel."

Consultation papers have been released to stakeholders, and a draft bill will be released for consultation at the end of this year, before a final draft is developed for introduction. It is hoped legislation will be enacted by the end of 2010.

Information about the Criminal Procedure (Simplification) Project is available at www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Media_Pack.doc. Consultation papers on a number of critical issues being considered under the project are available on the Ministry of Justice website www.justice.govt.nz/Simplification-Project/Criminal-procedure.html