High Court Civil National Performance Measures
Contents
Clearance rate
Waiting time to trial
Earliest available date
Time to judgment
Footnotes
The performance measures presented here provide a set of indicators (over a 12 month period or as at 31 December 2013 depending on the measure) that are used to monitor the performance of the High Court’s civil jurisdiction. Performance standards for each measure (by case type where applicable) have been determined by the High Court judiciary.
The performance measures are:
- Clearance rate
- Waiting time to trial
- Earliest available date
- Time to judgment
For clearance rate, waiting time to trial, and earliest available date target compliance of 80% has been set.
For time to judgment, a target compliance of 90% judgment delivery within 3 months has been set.
The case types are:
- Originating applications
- Judicial Review
- Appeals
- Insolvency
- Probate (clearance rate only)
- General proceedings (Long cause and short cause)
Long cause matters have an estimated hearing time of more than 5 days.
Short cause matters have an estimated hearing time of 5 days or less.
Each performance measure is defined, the purpose described, and actual performance presented. Data as at 31 December 2013 used [1].
Clearance rate
| General proceedings | Originating applications | Judicial review | Appeals | Insolvency | Probates | |
| Target compliance | 100% | |||||
| Actual (12 month rolling) | 98% | 98% | 91% | 100% | 102% | 101% |
Definition:
Clearance is calculated by the number of disposals in a given period as a percentage of the new business that came into the court in the same period. When the clearance rate is equal to 100% disposals are keeping up with new business; when the clearance rate is above 100% disposals are exceeding new business; and when the clearance rate is less than 100% disposals are not keeping up with new business.
Purpose:
Clearance rate measures whether the court is keeping up with its incoming caseload. If cases are not disposed in a timely manner, a backlog of cases awaiting disposition will grow. Knowledge of clearance rates by case type can help a court pinpoint emerging problems and indicate where improvements may be made. While courts aspire to clear (dispose of) at least as many cases as have been filed/reopened/reactivated in a period by having a clearance rate of 100 percent or higher, clearance rates can be affected by a sudden increase or decrease in volume.
Summary for 2013:
Filings for the case types reported decreased over the last year. For appeals, insolvency proceedings, and probates the number of disposals over the past year either matched or exceeded new filings. In the case of general proceedings and originating applications the drop in disposals over the past year slightly exceeded the drop in new filings. The number of judicial reviews disposed over the past year did increase (and the number of new filings did fall). However, disposals of judicial reviews have not yet caught up with the substantial increase in new filings of judicial reviews between 31 October 2011 and 31 July 2013.
Waiting time to trial
| General proceedings - short cause | General proceedings - long cause | Originating applications | Judicial review | Appeals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performance standard | ≤12 months | ≤18 months | ≤6 months | ||
| Target compliance | 80% | ||||
| Actual compliance | 86% | 91% | 76% | 65% | 71% |
Definition:
Waiting time to trial measures the length of time from when a case is certified capable of being readied for hearing until the future date of the scheduled substantive hearing, for cases which have a scheduled date of hearing.
Purpose:
The waiting time to trial measure is an indicator of the ability of the Court to provide a timely hearing date for cases that are ready to proceed, and of the effectiveness of the Court’s scheduling practices. When a case is certified “can be readied for hearing” preparation may still be required i.e. minor amendments to the pleadings, completion of minor interlocutory application and further refinement of the issues. See rule 7.6(3) High Court Rules [2].
It should be noted that this measure is also affected by the availability of parties, counsel, and witnesses.
Summary for 2013:
Targets for waiting time to trial are being exceeded for both long and short cause general proceedings. The waiting time to trial for originating applications is slightly below the target. The waiting time to trial for judicial reviews and appeals are below the target.
Earliest available date
| Time to earliest available date (at the end of the queue) |
|
|---|---|
| Time to earliest available trial date | |
| Performance standard | ≤9 months |
| Target compliance | 80% |
| Actual compliance | 69% |
Definition:
This measure is defined as the time from the reporting month end to the earliest available date (at the end of the queue) across all High Court registries. The performance standard requires that at least 80% of the time, a hearing fixture can be provided within 9 months for a case that is ready for hearing any length of hearing time in any registry.
Purpose:
Time to earliest available date is an indicator of the court’s ability to provide a fixture in a timely manner, should a case be ready for hearing. However it needs to be noted the measure for earliest available dates is for those at the end of the queue. The Court does often give earlier dates (than those at the end of the queue) by stacking multiple trials for the same date in the anticipation that most matters set down for hearing will not go to hearing.
Summary for 2013:
The target for earliest available dates was not able to be met as at 31 December 2013. However it needs to be noted the measure for earliest available dates is for those at the end of the queue. The Court does often give earlier dates (than those at the end of the queue) by stacking multiple trials for the same date in the anticipation that most matters set down for hearing will not go to hearing.
For this reason the court proposes to not report on this standard in the next iteration of the High Court annual statistics.
Time to judgment
| Time to judgement | |
|---|---|
| Performance standard | < 3 months |
| Target compliance | 90% |
| Actual compliance | 93% |
Definition:
This measure is defined as the time from last day of the hearing or receipt of final submissions to the date of judgment delivery. It includes judgments delivered ‘on the papers’ [3] which are assumed to be delivered in less than 3 months. The Judicial Christmas and Easter breaks [4] are excluded from the calculations.
A judgment is classified as a decision that receives a citation number from the High Court’s citation database; it therefore excludes for example minutes, undefended summary judgments, judgments on undefended insolvency applications, and judgments by default. The source of the data is the citation database.
Summary for 2013:
The ‘time to judgment’ target of 90% judgment delivery within 3 months was met in 2013.
Footnotes
[1] The explanations provided below have been drawn from material available in the Trial Court Performance Measures section of the Courtools website, Trial Court Performance Measures (developed by the National Centre for State Courts (US)), as well as definitions developed by the Ministry of Justice. The data used is sourced from the Ministry’s Case Management System, and for the Earliest Available Date measure, from each High Court registry’s scheduling staff.
[2] Rule 7.6(3) High Court Rules.
[3] Judgments ‘on the papers’ are recorded as issued on the day.
[4] The Christmas break runs from the 20th of December until the 31st of January (inclusive). The Easter break runs from the Thursday before Good Friday until the Sunday after Easter Sunday (inclusive).