High Court
Criminal jurisdiction: Year ended 30 June 2015
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Note: On 1 July 2013, the procedural provisions affecting criminal trials changed with the commencement of the bulk of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (CPA) provisions. Currently the High Court trial caseload is made up of cases commenced under the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 (SPA) and cases commenced under the CPA. Under the CPA, cases that are High Court-only offences (generally murder/manslaughter) have their first appearance in the District Court and are then managed in the High Court from second appearance onwards. The rest of the trials to be heard in the High Court are known as “protocol cases”. [1] Protocol cases are made up mainly of serious sexual, violence, drug and fraud offences. After a case review hearing in the District Court, a High Court judge determines whether the protocol case should be heard in the High Court or District Court. If the case is ordered to be heard in the High Court, it is counted as a High Court case from that time. As there are two procedural regimes in place, decisions were made about how to describe the caseload of criminal trials, to enable valid volume comparisons across years. Cases are counted as ready for trial under the SPA once they are committed for trial, and they are counted as ready for trial under the CPA once they have had a case review hearing or protocol determination. |
Criminal trials
Over the year to 30 June 2015, the number of new criminal trials received by the High Court increased to 204, up from 151 in the year to 30 June 2014. Of these 204 new trials, 25 were later joined to another High Court case. Of the new trials received in the period, 25% were murder/manslaughter cases and a further 25% were sexual assault cases.
At year-end, there were 168 active criminal trials. This is a 13% increase compared to the same time last year when there were 149 trials. Of those 168 active criminal trials, 148 follow the CPA process.
The total number of cases disposed [2] decreased by 16% to 188, down from 224 in the year to 30 June 2014. [3] Around 45% of cases disposed were disposed by guilty plea (compared with 40% in the year to 30 June 2014).
There has been an 11% decrease in the number of trials held, from 108 in the previous year to 96 this year. [4] Twenty percent of trials held were disposed by guilty plea (compared with 16% in the year to 30 June 2014).
The median waiting time to trial from committal or post case review was 336 days, a decrease of 10 days from the same time last year (346 median days).
Just over half of the cases disposed followed the CPA process. The average age of CPA cases disposed was 340 days. High Court-only offence cases took an average of 326 days and protocol cases took 350 days. [5]
Of the protocol cases disposed during the year, 44% were sexual offences and had an average age of 382 days at disposal. A further 22% were drug offences and had an average age of 315 days at disposal.
As we are now two years into a new procedural regime, SPA cases disposed during the year are older than CPA cases. They had an average age of 645 days at disposal. Twenty five percent of those SPA cases were sexual offence cases and had an average age of 578 days at disposal. A further 20% were drug cases and had an average age of 786 days at disposal.
Criminal appeals
New criminal appeals have increased by eight percent over the year. There were 1,141 new criminal appeals filed in the past 12 months, up from 1,059 in last year.
Over the same period there were 1,190 disposals, a 15% increase from the 1,036 in the previous year.
As at 30 June, there were 211 active appeals, a 14% decrease from 30 June 2014, when there were 246 active appeals.
Civil jurisdiction: Year ended 30 June 2015
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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 (including the Family Court) or a tribunal. The reporting for the 2014/2015 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 2014/15 financial year annual statistics cannot be compared to annual statistics published prior to June 2012. |
Overview of trial performance
While recent years had seen the proportion of civil matters determined by trial in the High Court increase, this number has fallen over the past year. During the year, 13% of civil disposals were determined by trial, compared to 15% the year before. This is still a high rate compared to other common law jurisdictions.
The past year has seen the average time to disposal for general proceedings disposed by judgment at or following a trial rise by 113 days from 505 days to 618 days over the past year. This change is mainly due to to the disposal of some very old cases over the past year each of which was aged over five and a half years at disposal.
Overview of whole of the civil jurisdiction
As a result of the economic downturn following the global financial crisis, 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 has been a declining trend in the total number of civil cases filed in the High Court, until the most recent year which had seen the volumes stabilise. This filing pattern reflects the impact of the economic cycle. In the 2014/15 financial year, the number of civil cases filed rose by 1% to 2,590 cases compared to 2,561 cases in 2013/14.
Auckland accounted for 50% of all civil cases filed during the year, following the general pattern seen in previous years.
There were 2,504 civil cases disposed. [6] This is a 4% decrease compared to 2,601 disposals in the previous year.
There were 1,941 active civil cases (awaiting hearing or judgment), a difference of less than 1% compared to the previous year, when there were 1,928 active civil cases.
General proceedings are most representative of a standard civil dispute brought to court. The top two types of general proceedings claims over the past 12 months were “Contractual disputes” at 11% of the claims filed and “Debt Recovery” at 8%. [7]
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) was 273 days compared with 218 days last year.
Waiting time to trial for 96% of short cause [8] general proceedings on hand is less than 12 months; and for 94% of long cause [9] general proceedings on hand is less than 18 months. Both these figures are above the performance targets set by the High Court, which aim to have a target compliance rate of 80%. [10]
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 at 30 June 2015, there were 546 active insolvency proceedings (awaiting hearing or judgment), a decrease of 10% compared to the previous year when there were 610 active insolvency proceedings.
There were 315 civil appeals filed which is a 4% decrease compared to 2013/14. The number of active civil appeals (awaiting hearing or awaiting judgment) is slightly lower than last year; there were 172 active appeals compared to 176 active appeals previously.
Statistics
[1] See s 66 Criminal Procedure Act and the most recent Court of Trial Protocol.
[2] “Disposed cases” are defined having a final outcome, e.g. sentence, acquittal, dismissal, withdrawal, or joined to another case.
[3] Some of this drop is more apparent than real. In the year ended 30 June 2014, disposals were higher as a larger number of cases were joined to another case than in 2015. There was also a criminal fraud trial that took six months to hear. A very long trial such as this can affect the number of trials able to be held in a year.
[4] The number of trials able to be held was affected by the six month long trial mentioned above.
[5] Protocol cases generally are older than High Court-only offences as they are subject to some statutory timeframes before they reach the High Court. The statutory timeframe to case review for protocol cases is 84 days (60 working days) and the protocol decision is expected to be made shortly after case review (5-10 working days maximum).
[6] Civil case disposals cover cases disposed by trial (13%), by adjudication outside the trial process (30%) or by settlement between the parties to a dispute (57%).
[7] Since 1 January 2013 the High Court has recorded the types of claims filed as a general proceeding.
[8] Short cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of 5 days or less
[9] Long cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of more than 5 days