High Court
High Court
Criminal jurisdiction
Criminal Trials
During the period under review, the procedure for hearing criminal trials in the courts in New Zealand changed. On 1 July 2013, the procedural provisions affecting criminal trials changed with the commencement of the bulk of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 provisions.
The High Court current trial caseload is made up of cases commenced under the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 (SPA) and cases commenced under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (CPA). Under the CPA, cases that are High Court only offences have their first appearance in the District Court and are then managed in the High Court from second appearance onwards. Criminal trials to be tried in the High Court under the Court of Trial protocol are received in the High Court post the case review hearing in the District Court.
As there are two procedural regimes in place, some decisions needed to be made about how to count the caseload of criminal trials. For counting purposes, new criminal trial cases ready for trial comprise cases committed for trial under the SPA and cases ready for trial (post case review hearing) under the CPA.
Over the last year, the number of criminal trial cases ready in the High Court decreased 7% to 215, down from 232 in the 12 months to 31 December 2012. There were 154 active criminal trials as at 31 December 2013, this is a 9% reduction compared to the same time the previous year when there were 169.
The number of cases disposed increased by 5% to 222 in the 12 months ending 31 December 2013 (up from 212 in the 12 months to 31 December 2012).
There has been an 8% decrease in the number of trials held, from 113 in the 12 months to 31 December 2012 to 104 over the past 12 months.
There were 8 more cases disposed of before or on the day of trial in the 12 months ending 31 December 2013 compared to the same time the previous year.
The median waiting time to trial from committal or post case review (as at 31 December 2013) was 356 days, an increase of 13 days from the same time in December 2012. In the last 12 months, the Court has granted a number of late adjournments in the interests of justice, which required new trial dates to be allocated, and this has affected the overall waiting time to trial.
As at 31 December 2013, there were four cases with High Court only offences managed under the CPA that were disposed of in the High Court before they were deemed ready for trial. In the 12 months to 31 December 2013, there were 57 cases that had guilt established (by plea or verdict from a judge or jury) in the District Court and were transferred to the High Court for sentencing.
Criminal Appeals
New criminal appeals have decreased by 12% over the last year. There were 1,032 new criminal appeals filed in the past 12 months, down from 1,179 in the 12 months to 31 December 2012. Over the same period there were 1,045 disposals, a 14% decrease from the 1,213 in the 12 months to 31 December 2012. As at 31 December 2013 there were 232 active appeals, an 8% increase from 31 December 2012, when there were 223 active appeals.
Civil jurisdiction
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Note: Civil cases in this context include: general proceedings, judicial reviews, and originating applications. Insolvency cases are bankruptcy cases (where an adjudication order has been filed) and company liquidations. Civil appeals are matters in the civil jurisdiction appealed to the High Court from either the District Court or a tribunal. The way the workload of the civil jurisdiction of the High Court is reported changed as from the publication of the June 2012 annual statistics. The data source used has changed from manual workload returns to the Ministry's electronic Case Management System (CMS). The manual data only reported on cases that were ready to be heard, while the new CMS data includes cases that have been filed but are not yet ready to be heard. The methodology for calculating waiting time to trial for general proceedings also changed. Therefore comparisons cannot be made between the December 2013 annual statistics and annual statistics published prior to June 2012. Additionally the reporting for the December 2013 annual statistics does not include claims of historic abuse occurring within state institutions. The significant majority of these cases are concluded by confidential settlement carried out with little input by the Court. They are excluded because they do not follow the normal process for progression through the Court. For this reason new business, disposal, and active case data for general proceedings in the December 2013 annual statistics cannot be compared to annual statistics published prior to June 2013 . High Court civil national performance measures Performance of the civil jurisdiction of the High Court is measured against the national performance standards that have been determined by the Judiciary. Further information regarding the High Court civil national performance measures can be found here . |
Overview of trial performance
In recent years the proportion of civil matters determined by trial in the High Court has increased. During the last year, 9% of civil disposals were determined by trial. This is a high proportion compared to other common law jurisdictions.
Cases determined by trial were heard more quickly in 2013 than in 2012. This is part of a improving trend which commenced in 2011. The most significant improvement in timeliness over the past year has been the time to trial for general proceedings adjudications. The median age at disposal has dropped by 51 days from 468 days as at 31 December 2012 to 417 days as at 31 December 2013. The average age has dropped 75 days from 581 days to 506 days over the same period.
There are a number of reasons for a shorter time to trial. First, there are fewer cases coming before judges either for trial or non-trial adjudication ( see note 1 ). In the years following the global financial crisis, filings rose markedly but these have now levelled off. Secondly a change occurred to the setting down policy in the Auckland High Court which is the court with the most civil business. The previous policy was to give trial dates at the end of the queue. Now dates for cases of five days or less are set for the time when the parties consider they will be ready to go to trial. An undesirable effect of “end of queue” allocation was the artificial lengthening of time to trial. In a jurisdiction like High Court civil, many filings do not go to trial. Rather the parties settle them. Although the court operates high levels of overloading (up to 500% in Auckland), scheduling cases at the end of the queue was still leading to overlong waits to trial. This effect appears to have been stopped. Finally, cases settle in “the shadow of the trial” so giving the parties earlier dates, means settlements are likely to occur earlier. This in turn leads to earlier trial dates for new filings.
Overview of whole of the civil jurisdiction
As a result of the economic downturn following the global financial crisis ( see note 2 ), there was a significant increase in new civil business in the period leading up to mid 2010. Filings peaked in mid-2010, and since then there had been a declining trend in the total number of civil cases filed in the High Court until September 2013. This filing pattern reflects the impact of the economic cycle. In the 12 months ending 31 December 2013, the number of civil cases filed fell 6% to 2,669 cases compared to 2,841 cases in the previous year.
Auckland accounted for 52% of all civil cases filed in the 12 months ending December 2013.
As noted above, a feature of the civil jurisdiction is that many cases are disposed in some way before trial. Approximately 80% of general proceedings filed are disposed in the initial phase (prior to being deemed ready for hearing). Approximately 10% dispose in the pre-trial window (that is after being deemed ready for hearing but prior to trial). Of the remaining 10%, a small percentage settle during trial and the balance are disposed by trial. Recently about 9% of general proceedings have been resolved by trial.
There were 2,598 civil cases disposed in the 12 months to 31 December 2013; a 16% decrease compared to 3,081 disposals in the 12 months to 31 December 2012.
While this decrease appears significant, there are several reasons for it. First, there has been a decrease in new general proceedings filed (notably those with summary judgment applications) in the last two years. A large proportion of filings settle. As a result any reduction in filings will ultimately lead to a reduction in disposals. Secondly, there has been a decrease in new originating applications filed in the last year. Thirdly, there was an unusually high number of settlements in the 12 months to 31 December 2012. However, the percentage of civil cases disposed by trial in the 12 months to 30 December 2013 is slightly higher than the previous 12 months.
As at 31 December 2013 there were 2,024 active civil cases (awaiting hearing or judgment), a 5% increase compared to 31 December 2012 when there were 1,928 active civil cases.
General proceedings are most representative of a standard civil dispute brought to court. The median waiting time to trial for general proceedings (measured from the date the case was deemed ready for hearing to the future hearing date) as at 31 December 2013 was 267 days, compared with 292 days as at 31 December 2012.
Additionally waiting time to trial for over 85% of short cause ( see note 3 ) general proceedings on hand is less than 12 months; and for over 90% of long cause ( see note 4 ) general proceedings on hand is less than 18 months. Both these figures are within the performance standard timeframes set by the Court.
Since 1 January 2013 the court has recorded the types of claims filed as a general proceeding. The top two types of general proceedings claims in 2013 were “Debt recovery” at 19% of the claims filed and ‘Natural disasters – Christchurch earthquakes’ at 14%.
The number of insolvency cases filed in the High Court has been declining since the start of 2011, after a significant increase in filings over several years that peaked in early 2009, as a result of the economic downturn. As at 31 December 2013 there were 652 active insolvency proceedings (awaiting hearing or judgment), a decrease of 9% compared to 31 December 2012, when there were 715 active insolvency proceedings.
There were 317 civil appeals filed in the 12 months to 31 December 2013, this is a 6% decrease on the previous 12 months. The number of active civil appeals (awaiting hearing or awaiting judgment) is slightly lower than last year; there were 199 active appeals as at 31 December 2013 compared to 206 active appeals as at 31 December 2012.
Statistics
Footnotes
Note 1: Non trial adjudication covers matters such as judgment applications.
Note 2: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/economy/overview/2012/09.htm
Note 3: Short cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of 5 days or less.
Note 4: Long cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of more than 5 days.