District Court
District Courts
Jurisdiction
The New Zealand District Courts have originating jurisdiction over all criminal matters. They deal with all but a small number of serious offences which are dealt with by the High Court. In its civil jurisdiction the District Courts can hear general claims up to $200,000. The Family Court and Youth Court are divisions of the District Court.
These are the annual statistics for the District Court, including the Family Court, Youth Court, and Civil for the calendar year ending 31 December 2016. Please refer to the glossary for the definitions of terms used in this commentary.
Criminal jurisdiction
Total Criminal for District Courts
The increase in new business was driven by more people appearing before the Courts. The increase in active case numbers is representative of the Court’s workload that has become more complex and serious.
Comparing the 2016 calendar year to 2015, this jurisdiction has seen:
• a 4% increase in new business to 138,772 cases
• a 3% increase in disposals to 135,003 cases
• an 11% increase in active cases to 34,245 cases
Jury trials – subset of total criminal
The jury trial jurisdiction deals with the more serious criminal cases. As at 31 December 2016, the District Court jury trial caseload is made up almost entirely of cases commenced under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (CPA).
Comparing the 2016 calendar year to 2015, this jurisdiction has seen a:
• 16% increase in new business to 3,181 cases
• 2% decrease in disposals to 2,407 cases
• 14% increase in active cases to 2,279 cases
It should be noted that the figures quoted relate to case volumes and not the underlying complexity and time taken to deal with Jury Trials.
Youth Court – subset of total criminal
From 1 July 2013, significant changes to the Youth Court jurisdiction mean all serious charges, except murder and manslaughter, relating to young people, and still including certain charges against children aged 12 and 13 must now be heard and determined in the Youth Court.
The Youth Court is a specialist division of the District Court. Its processes, practices and statutory principles are markedly different to those of District Court cases involving adult defendants. The Youth Court process does not follow the standard criminal process of appear, convict and sentence. Cases are often not disposed of quickly, and higher clearance rates are not always seen as an optimum outcome.
Comparing the 2016 calendar year to 2015, this jurisdiction has seen a:
• 14% increase in new business to 4,572 cases
• 15% increase in disposals to 4,382 cases
• 10% increase in active cases to 1,133 cases
Civil Jurisdiction
The majority of cases in the District Court civil system are undefended, and are resolved without proceeding to hearing and are not included in the figures below.
Comparing 2016 calendar year to 2015, this jurisdiction has seen a:
• 7% decrease in new business to 687 cases
• 10% decrease in disposals to 731 cases
• 1% decrease in active cases to 537 cases
Family Court Jurisdiction
The Family Court makes orders for any person (including the unborn) in need of care and protection. Not only is the age band wide but the variety of cases that come before the Court is considerable.
Family Court statistics provided below show the number of applications as opposed to the number of cases. This is due to the fact that each case may involve several applications, some of which may be managed together. Therefore, the numbers reported below do not represent either the numbers of people or cases before the Family Court and are not representative of how cases are managed.
Applications are grouped under the following Case Types:
• Care of Children Act
• Children, young persons and their families
• Dissolution (divorce)
• Domestic violence
• Mental health
• Protection of personal and property rights
• Relationship property
• Other
Comparing the 2016 calendar year to 2015, this jurisdiction has seen a:
• 3% increase in new applications to 59,678
• 2% decrease in disposals to 57,179 applications
• 9% increase in the number of active applications to 24,534