The government has revealed it's planning to dramatically reduce
the number of jury trials so that far more cases are heard by a
judge alone.
It's part of a radical shake up of the justice system aimed at
clearing the congested court system.
Talking to political editor Guyon Espiner on TVNZ's Q + A programme, Justice Minister Simon Power said counsel are using the ability to elect to go to jury trial as a mechanism to slowing court processes.
Power says it is time to ask some hard questions and look at significant changes in New Zealand's criminal justice system.
"You can continue to have a debate as a country about needing more judges, building more courts, or you can have a fundamental look at the way that our justice system is running," Power says.
Currently under the Bill of Rights anyone accused of an offence that carries a prison term of three months or more can elect trial by jury but Power would like to see that threshold raised to three years. This could result in about 1,000 fewer jury trials a year.
He says many cases could be dealt with very quickly and very appropriately at a lower level using judges.
Power says it is the fundamental right of anybody to have a fair hearing but whether or not a jury is appropriate is a problematic issue for the justice system.
The Justice Minister says 1700 people end up in remand in any one year waiting for a jury trial to proceed and that is not a good use of the Crown's resources. He says his concerns are not about getting jurors to sit on the trials but in the delays in getting cases to court. Power says currently in the district court there is a wait of about 12 months and in the high court it is over 16 months.
"We have to address this. This is not without controversy, I accept that, but the fact is our criminal justice system has not been delivering," says Power.
"Victims of crime find this process incredibly difficult," he says.
Power says fewer jury trials would shorten that time and it is not the best use of the justice system to be using jury trials for what are essentially minor offences.
No shows
Power is also taking aim at what he says is another delaying tactic when somebody doesn't appear at a hearing. Currently he says the only sanction available to courts in general is to schedule another hearing. However he says some provisions under the Summary Proceedings Act allow convictions to be entered for non appearance at trial and he would like these to be extended.
Unless such an action would be manifestly unjust, Power would like the presumption to shift to a conviction being entered if a person who has entered a plea doesn't turn up.
He says currently in a large number of cases people simply don't show up, leading to last minute adjournments.
Cases drawn out
And Power is unhappy with both prosecution and defence lawyers failing to move through hearings in a timely and appropriate way.
"I think we are seeing the system being badly incentivised, particularly around legal aid, to encourage multiple appearances on issues that should be dealt with in a short and timely way at first appearance."
Power has asked for an extensive look and review of the legal aid system.
"This gaming of the criminal justice system has got to stop."
He believes legal aid lawyers should have their eligibility to do legal aid cases tested if they are not proceeding in a timely way.
"To simply not be ready, to not be available and to not show up are not good reasons".
But one prominent QC says judge-only trials will not solve the problem of getting cases heard.
"You still need one judge - got to be at a jury trial as well as one judge at a hearing. So you're just moving one indigestable blob of time into another place. So how exactly that's going to fix things I don't know," says Robert Lithgow, Queens Counsel.
So there are critics already but Power says he's determined to speed up the wheels of justice.
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