Supreme Court

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is New Zealand’s final court of appeal.  It deals with criminal and civil appeals from the lower courts.  The Supreme Court must grant leave before an appeal can proceed.

The number of applications for leave to appeal filed in the Supreme Court had been increasing from its establishment in 2004 until June 2011.  However, there has been a steady decrease in applications for leave to appeal over the last 18 months.

Criminal jurisdiction

In the 12 months ending 31 December 2012, three criminal appeals were disposed of with three separate judgments (compared to the previous 12 months where 12 separate judgments disposed of 29 appeals and one other appeal was abandoned).  In 2011 the Supreme Court dealt with a large volume of criminal appeals as a result of appeals from the Urewera firearms case.

As at 31 December 2012, there were four active criminal appeals (awaiting hearing or judgment).

Civil jurisdiction

The number of civil appeals filed in the Supreme Court has been decreasing since mid-2010.  In the 12 months ending 31 December 2012:

• 14 new civil appeals were filed, (down from 16 in the previous 12 months). 
• 19 separate judgments of the Court disposed of 21 civil appeals and a further three appeals were abandoned (11 separate judgments disposed of 15 appeals and two further appeals were abandoned in the previous 12 months). 

As at 31 December 2012 there were six active civil appeals (awaiting hearing or judgment), a decrease of 63% compared to 31 December 2011. 

Statistics