Civil justice

Contents

"Courts of law developed as a substitute for self-help remedies. The civil action has been described as 'civilisation’s substitute for vengeance'. They are essential to social order. The courts’ decisions articulate clearly how the law applies to the citizen, and thereby allow others to order their conduct and affairs so as to comply with the law.

"Through the independent operation of the courts, society also orders itself in the certain knowledge and belief that all can have a remedy for a wrong, and that no-one, no matter how rich or powerful, is above the law."[40]

CHIEF JUSTICE HELEN WINKELMANN

Civil proceedings involve the enforcement of rights and obligations outside of the criminal justice system. New Zealanders are more likely to interact with the courts in civil proceedings – for instance to settle a dispute between neighbours or with an employer, resolve a debt or insolvency issue or apply for probate – than they are through criminal proceedings. Civil cases are typically brought by private individuals, businesses or companies, but may include proceedings brought by or against central and local government and regulatory agencies.

The courts discussed in this section are all first-instance civil courts, or courts with a first- instance civil jurisdiction. A “first-instance” court is a court in which proceedings can commence.

New Zealand’s principal appellate courts, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, hear civil appeals. These courts are discussed in the section on “Appellate Courts”.

Cost, and a lack of understanding about how to navigate the civil justice system are recognised barriers to people who seek to access civil justice in New Zealand. Initiatives underway to understand and address these barriers, are described below under individual courts, and in Part 3 “Access to Justice”.

High Court

The High Court has unlimited jurisdiction for civil claims. It can hear any claim that is not within the exclusive jurisdiction of another court. The judges of the High Court (generally 40 in number) hear a wide variety of cases, including high-value and complex commercial disputes, property disputes, significant regulatory proceedings, defamation claims, intellectual property disputes, disputes arising out of family trusts and wills, claims by the Commissioner of Police to alleged proceeds of crime, judicial review proceedings, and appeals from other courts and tribunals. The court also hears urgent applications for interim injunctions and asset freezing orders.

Civil trials can be complex, requiring considerable hearing time – up to several months for some proceedings. Careful case management is required to ensure that cases proceed efficiently, moving through to hearing promptly and minimising necessary hearing time.

This year, the Court has managed a sharp increase in the number of company liquidations and insolvency proceedings. The number of insolvency proceedings alone rose 36 per cent compared to 2023.

There is too much delay in the High Court’s civil jurisdiction. There are a number of reasons for this. As in the criminal jurisdictions, trials are becoming more complex and getting longer. In addition, criminal proceedings are given priority over civil because in the High Court criminal trials often involve a defendant in custody.

The Court is preparing to respond to this growing issue of delay in the civil jurisdiction. Initiatives include the establishment of the Auckland Commercial List (see below) and the implementation of new High Court Rules which have proportionality as an underlying principle. See more in Part 3.

Work has also been underway this year to give effect to the recommendations made by the Rules Committee in its 2022 report “Improving Access to Civil Justice”. These recommendations are aimed at enabling efficient and timely resolution of proceedings in the civil jurisdiction. See more in Part 3.

Because of the complexity of the law and factual issues in High Court civil proceedings, judges must provide detailed written reasons for their decisions. The High Court has set judgment delivery expectations in which 90 per cent of judgments are to be delivered within three months of the conclusion of the hearing. In 2024, the High Court delivered approximately 2,059 reserved civil judgments, 77.3 per cent of which were delivered within one month of the hearing, and 92.1 per cent of which were delivered within three months of the hearing.[41]

Further details of the work of the High Court are available in the High Court’s Annual Report 2024.

A dedicated commercial list for the Auckland High Court
Work has been underway since the start of the year to establish a commercial list in the Auckland High Court. The aim of the Auckland Commercial List is to achieve better efficiencies, quicker hearing times, and earlier settlements in commercial matters. It is modelled on the New South Wales Supreme Court’s Commercial List, and has been developed in consultation with the profession.

The Auckland Commercial List is planned to commence in October 2025.

How the high court is managing proceedings resulting from The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care
Since 1993, approximately 900 proceedings alleging abuse in State care have been filed in the Wellington Registry of the High Court.

There are 400 proceedings still to go before the court. The majority of these proceedings are on hold while alternative dispute resolution processes take place. Because of the significance of these cases, they are case-managed by one assigned judge and an assigned deputy registrar, and prioritised over other cases in the registry.

For more on the judiciary’s response to the recommendations from the Royal Commission on Abuse in State Care, see the section on "Judicial education".

District Court

The District Court has jurisdiction to hear civil claims up to a value of $350,000 that are not within the exclusive jurisdiction of other courts. It also hears appeals from some tribunals.

The 2022 Rules Committee report “Improving Access to Civil Justice” included a number of recommendations for improvements in the civil jurisdiction of the District Court. Key to the work of the District Court, recommendations include the creation of a separate civil division of the District Court led by a Principal Civil Judge, and strengthening the civil registries across the country. There was good progress in 2024 in strengthening the work of the Auckland registry.

There was a rise in civil cases coming to the District Court this year, with debt collection cases dominating the figures. Other examples of common civil claims in the District Court include contractual disputes (where one party has not performed their obligations under an agreement), negligence (such as where services have not been provided with reasonable care and skill) and restraining orders (where a person is seeking an order to prevent harassment).

Specialist Courts

Several courts have specialist jurisdictions.

Their work is explained briefly below, along with significant events that occurred over the last year.

The Family Court | Te Kōti Whānau

The Family Court is part of the District Court. It was established in 1981 to resolve matters relating to the care of children, care and protection, relationship property, mental health, family violence, substance addiction and treatment, adoption, gender registration and surrogacy. The Family Court receives and deals with a significant number of applications, with more than 60,000 filed each year. There are 70 permanent and seven acting judges warranted to sit in the Family Court.

Timely and effective family justice processes
The jurisdiction of the Family Court involves matters that require prompt resolution—the care and protection of children, the division of property following the end of a relationship— and in which delay causes distress and harm. However, delay continues to be a concern of, and a focus for, the Court. There are many reasons for delay in the Family Court: increasing case numbers and complexity in the cases before the court, changes in the legislation the Court must administer, and in some areas too few judges and too few courtrooms.

Ensuring that the Court makes the changes within its ambit to address delay is therefore critical. In September the Court introduced the Family Court Efficiency Tools, to identify and address causes of delay within the court.

Implementing the District Court’s vision of Te Ao Mārama continues to be a priority in the Family Court, with the primary focus on care and protection.

Te Au Reka, the new digital case and court management system, will be introduced into the Family Court, scheduled to be operational in 2026. See Part 3.

Family Court Associates and Kaiārahi
The Family Court Associate role was established in 2023 to provide additional resource for the overloaded court. Family Court Associates are judicial officers who make decisions at the early stages of proceedings, including conducting interlocutory hearings and in addition, exercising all the powers of a court registrar.

The first six Family Court Associates joined the bench in April. Four are based in Auckland and two are in Christchurch. In August, the Attorney- General approved the recruitment of a second tranche of seven new Family Court Associates.

Successful candidates will be inducted in early to mid-2025.

There are now 51 Kaiārahi, or Family Court navigators, in courtrooms across the country. Kaiārahi are a link between the community and the Family Court, providing information and support to parents, caregivers and whānau on how to navigate the court system or access out-of-court services. Kaiārahi are officers of the court. They develop relationships with justice agencies, the community and iwi to improve understanding of court processes.

Family violence operating model
Much of the work before the Family Court is concerned in some way with family and sexual violence. A project trialling a Family Violence Operating Model began in 2023 in the Christchurch Family Court. The project focuses on increasing in-court safety for participants, including providing for different ways of giving evidence (either remotely or in advance), the use of plain language, and improving information- sharing between the Family Court and the criminal courts.

» Family Court Statistics

Family Court Judges’ ongoing education
Family Court judges are offered regular educational opportunities that incorporate evolving knowledge and information about their work, including dynamics of family and sexual violence and the impact of abuse on behaviour and memory.

Content on abusive litigation has been added to the Family Violence Bench Book. This new topic focuses on tactics that perpetrators of family violence sometimes employ in Family Court proceedings to maintain a pattern of coercive control against their former partners, along with tools that judges may use to counter this form of abuse.

Employment Court | Te Kōti Take Mahi

The Employment Court hears and determines cases relating to employment disputes. These include challenges to determinations of the Employment Relations Authority, questions of interpretation of law, and disputes over strikes and lockouts. The court hears and determines approximately 150-200 cases a year.

This year there has been an increase in applications to the Employment Court for interim relief (such as reinstatement to a job) and applications for compliance orders.

Organisational restructurings, particularly in the public sector, and the current economic climate, affect the workload of the Court. It is anticipated that this will continue into the foreseeable future.

The Court’s new case numbers reflect this trend – rising 24 per cent in the last year. Although this has led to a growth in the number of active cases (18 per cent), the Court has continued to meet its judgment delivery expectations, which require that 90 per cent of judgments are to be delivered within three months of the conclusion of the hearing.

In addition to their courtroom work, the Judges of the Employment Court regularly engage with community law centres, students, and the legal profession to increase public understanding of employment law and practice and its stabilising force within our society.

» Employment Court statistics

Te Kooti Whenua Māori | Māori Land Court

The Māori Land Court is New Zealand’s longest established specialist court.

It is the only indigenous land court in the world. The court’s key purpose is to promote the retention of Māori land in Māori hands, and to support landowners to use, occupy and develop their whenua for the benefit of all landowners, and their whānau and hapū. The court is responsible for the accurate documentation of the succession and management of Māori land.

Judge Craig Coxhead was appointed as the Deputy Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court on 27 May 2024. Judge Coxhead has sat as a Judge of the Māori Land Court since 2008, based in the Waiariki court registry. The Court also welcomed new Judge Nathan Milner to the bench in July 2024 with a swearing-in ceremony at Te Poho-o-Rāwiri Marae in Gisborne. Judge Milner will sit in the Tairāwhiti Māori Land Court registry.

Reducing a backlog of cases in the court has been a focus for judges and for staff of the seven Māori Land Court registries. This backlog has in part been caused by difficulties in introducing a new case management system, Pātaka Whenua.

The Court has developed a Mahi Tahi policy, setting out how the judiciary and court staff work together to ensure the delivery of its services to all Māori landowners and other parties.

Māori Land Court judges also sit on the Māori Appellate Court and the Waitangi Tribunal. In addition, some Māori Land Court judges sit as alternate judges in the Environment Court.

There is a longstanding arrangement for serving Māori Land Court judges to sit in the Cook Islands High Court (land division) and the High Court of Niue. Judge Coxhead is also the Chief Justice of Niue – see Part 5, “Pacific and International Engagement”.

Guidance issued for banks and landowners on mortgages for Māori land
The Court developed and published a Banking Practice Note, providing guidance to Māori landowners, banking professionals and legal practitioners on the legislative framework and court powers available to support landowners seeking to obtain a mortgage over whenua Māori (Māori land). Work on this practice note was led by Judge Miharo Armstrong, and it has received positive feedback from landowners and the banking sector. The practice note can be read on the Māori Land Court’s website.

A new home for the Māori Land Court in Tairāwhiti
More than 100 people gathered to witness the closure of the old Tairāwhiti Māori Land Court and its move to its new site on Gladstone Road. The new court was blessed before being officially opened by Sir Derek Lardelli and his team of kaikarakia on 29 November.

Chief Māori Land Court Judge Caren Fox, and resident judges Judge Wilson Isaac and Judge Nathan Milner were joined by Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu and other members of the Māori Land Court bench for a special sitting that followed the opening ceremony. In attendance were iwi leaders, Her Worship the Mayor Rehette Stoltz, Ministry of Justice and Te Puni Kōkiri officials, and former and current staff.

The three-storey building houses reception and research facilities, mediation and meeting rooms, the courthouse, office space and chambers.

Environment Court | Te Kōti Taiao

The Environment Court is established under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) principally to hear appeals from decisions under that Act and others, such as appeals about the contents of regional and district plans and appeals arising out of applications for resource consents. The RMA also confers jurisdiction on the Environment Court to hear enforcement proceedings.

Alternative dispute resolution in the Environment Court
Alternative dispute resolution methods, such as court-assisted mediation, play an important part in the Environment Court. Mediation, offered by the court, agreed to by the parties, and facilitated by an Environment Commissioner, is used in most appeals. Facilitated expert conferencing is also a regular feature. Where expert evidence is to be called, experts in the same field are normally directed to confer, with facilitation by an Environment Commissioner, and produce a joint witness statement prior to any hearing. These methods result in full or partial agreements between parties and the narrowing of evidential issues in approximately 75 per cent of cases. This reduces the time required to hear the cases.

Timeliness in the Environment court
The Environment Court ended the calendar year with no backlog, through the successful use of remote hearing procedures and alternative dispute resolution.

For prosecutions under the RMA, some of which are heard by jury trial held in the District Court, there continue to be delays.

Forward-focused power to prevent, remedy and mitigate environmental harm
The Court, in its capacity to hear enforcement proceedings, has powers to order a person not only to stop causing adverse effects on the environment, but also to take steps that may be necessary to avoid, remedy or mitigate any adverse effects they might cause. This forward-focused power is essential to achieve sustainable management of resources and maintain and enhance the quality of the environment.

Recent cases dealing with problems caused by poor forestry practices in Tairāwhiti | Gisborne have demonstrated that such forward-looking enforcement orders may be more effective in driving changes in industry practice and providing the community with some relief, compared to the outcomes of prosecutions.

Direct referral of resource consent applications to the Environment Court
Certain resource consent applications (that qualify to be dealt with in this way) can be directly referred to the Environment Court. This means they can be dealt with swiftly while still providing for public participation and a robust examination of evidence. An example of this approach this year was Meridian Energy’s application for a windfarm on Mt Munro in the Wairarapa. The application was directly referred to the Court in March.

Court-facilitated mediation occurred in June and July, facilitated expert witness conferencing took place in August and the full hearing was in September with closing submissions received in October. The judgment is scheduled for delivery in February 2025.

» Environment Court statistics

Coroners Court | Te Kōti Kaitirotiro Matewhawhati

The Coroners Court conducts inquiries into deaths that are sudden, unexplained, violent, appear to be self-inflicted or that happen in official custody or care. The coroner will determine findings of fact, and consider whether anything could be done differently to prevent similar deaths.

Historically, the demands on the Coroners Court have exceeded the available judicial resource, resulting in delay in providing whānau and other interested parties with answers and in making recommendations to keep the community safer. To tackle the backlog and reduce delay, the Court introduced a backlog reduction strategy in October 2023, with the goal of reducing the backlog of around 1,500 aged cases.

The central pillar of the strategy was to advocate for an increase in the number of coroners. The appointment of four additional coroners and the creation of the new associate coroner role has enabled the Court to close almost 800 cases that would otherwise have not been progressed. The bench has a current total of 37 coroners, relief coroners and associate coroners.

Another aspect of the strategy is more proactive management of the Court’s workload and better use of workload data to identify and, if necessary, redistribute aged cases.

Coroners work closely with Police and the Ministry of Justice to improve the coronial process so that it is consistent, efficient, empathetic and culturally responsive. In 2024 the Coroners Court established an advisory group of coroners, whose mandate is to advise the bench regarding matters of tikanga Māori. The advisory group was established with a view to ensuring that, as far as possible, tikanga Māori is recognised and the cultural needs of family and whānau are accommodated throughout the Coroners Court processes. The advisory group has met regularly this year to address issues that have arisen within the Court, and to facilitate improvements to processes going forward.

» Coroners Court statistics

Tribunals

Most civil justice in New Zealand takes place in tribunals. Tribunals are specialist bodies set up to deal with specific types of disputes with the intention that they resolve disputes more quickly and less expensively, and with less formality, than the courts.

Apart from the Disputes Tribunal, which sits within the District Court, tribunals are not part of the formal court system. However, they are the primary means for New Zealanders to seek justice and resolve disputes – with more than 100,000 people each year turning to the tribunals for assistance.

Tribunal reform
New Zealanders are more likely to access civil justice through tribunals than through the courts. More than 50 tribunals exist in New Zealand, providing a forum for resolution for a wide range of issues, from motor vehicle disputes to issues with superannuation.

The Chief Justice has called for the structural reforms to tribunals that have been recommended by the Law Commission to be put into effect. These reforms would provide tribunals with the institutional structure to ensure independent and effective decision-making – a critical requirement for the rule of law, given the nature and extent of the work before them.

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Next section: Appellate courts

Footnotes

[40] Winkelmann J, Ethel Benjamin Address Access to Justice “Who needs lawyers?”, 2014: https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/publications/speeches-and-papers

[41] Judgment delivery expectations for the High Court are available here: https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/the-courts/high-court/