High Court
Contents
Criminal jurisdiction
Civil jurisdiction
Statistics
The High Court hears the more serious and complex criminal and civil cases. It also hears appeals from lower courts and tribunals.
The civil jurisdiction accounts for approximately 60% of the court’s overall workload, with the criminal jurisdiction accounting for around 40%.
In the criminal jurisdiction, complex cases or cases involving multiple accused are a feature of cases heard. High Court jury trials usually take longer than a week to hear.
The High Court in Auckland deals with around half of the High Court’s overall workload.
These statistics are for the 12 months to 30 June 2014.
Criminal jurisdiction
Criminal trials
During the period under review, the procedure for hearing criminal trials in the courts in New Zealand changed. On 1 July 2013, the procedural provisions affecting criminal trials changed with the commencement of the bulk of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 provisions.
The current High Court trial caseload is made up of cases commenced under the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 (SPA) and cases commenced under the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (CPA). Under the CPA, cases that are High Court only offences have their first appearance in the District Court and are then managed in the High Court from second appearance onwards. Criminal trials to be tried in the High Court under the Court of Trial protocol are received in the High Court post the case review hearing in the District Court. At the end of the 2013/14 financial year, 58% of trials were commenced under the SPA and 42% under the CPA.
As there are two procedural regimes in place, some decisions needed to be made about how to describe the caseload of criminal trials. For counting purposes, to enable valid volume comparisons across years, new criminal trial cases ready for trial comprise cases committed for trial under the SPA and cases ready for trial (post case review hearing) under the CPA.
Over the 2013/14 financial year, the number of new criminal trials decreased 38% to 151, down from 244 in 2012/13. When compared to four years ago, new criminal trials have decreased by 17%. The sharp decrease over the last financial year may in part be attributable to the under-identification of cases eligible for a protocol decision in the first year of the CPA.
There were 149 active criminal trials as at 30 June 2014, this is a 30% reduction compared to the same time the previous year when there were 213.
The number of cases disposed increased by 4% to 224 in the 2013/14 year (up from 215 in 2012/13).
There has been an 11% decrease in the number of trials held, from 121 in the 2012/13 year, to 108 in 2013/14.
There were 11 fewer cases disposed of before the day of trial in the 2013/14 financial year, compared to the same time the previous year.
The median waiting time to trial from committal or post case review (as at 30 June 2014) was 346 days, an increase of 19 days from the same time in June 2013.
As at 30 June 2014, there were four cases with High Court only offences managed under the CPA that were disposed of in the High Court before they were deemed ready for trial. In the 2013/14 financial year, there were 57 cases that had guilt established (by plea or verdict from a judge or jury) in the District Court and were transferred to the High Court for sentencing.
Criminal appeals
New criminal appeals have decreased by 7% over the 2013/14 financial year. There were 1,059 new criminal appeals filed in the past 12 months, down from 1,140 in 2012/13. Over the same period there were 1,036 disposals, an 11% decrease from the 1,168 in 2012/13. As at 30 June 2014 there were 246 active appeals, a 19% increase from 30 June 2013, when there were 206 active appeals.
Civil jurisdiction
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Overview of trial performance
In recent years the proportion of civil matters determined by trial in the High Court has increased. During the 2013/14 financial year, 15% of civil disposals were determined by trial. This is a high rate compared to other common law jurisdictions.
Cases determined by trial were heard more quickly in the 2013/14 financial year than the 2012/13 year. This is part of an improving trend which commenced in 2011. A significant improvement in timeliness over the past year has been the time to disposal for general proceedings disposed by judgment at or following a trial. The average age for general proceedings disposed by judgment at or following a trial has decreased by 40 days from 544 days to 504 days over the past year.
The decrease in time to trial is strongly linked to a change that occurred to the setting down policy in the Auckland High Court which is the court with the most civil business. The previous policy was to give trial dates at the end of the queue. Now dates for cases of five days or less are set for the time when the parties consider they will be ready to go to trial. An undesirable effect of the previous “end of queue” allocation was the artificial lengthening of time to trial. In a jurisdiction like High Court civil, many filings do not go to trial. Rather the parties settle them.
Although the court operates high levels of overloading (up to 500% in Auckland), scheduling cases at the end of the queue was still leading to overlong waiting time to trial. This effect appears to have been stopped. In addition, cases settle in “the shadow of the trial” so giving the parties earlier dates, means settlements are likely to occur earlier. This in turn leads to earlier trial dates for new filings.
Overview of whole of the civil jurisdiction
As a result of the economic downturn following the global financial crisis [1], 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. This filing pattern reflects the impact of the economic cycle. In the 2013/14 financial year, the number of civil cases filed fell 6% to 2,561 cases compared to 2,720 cases in 2012/13.
Auckland accounted for 51% of all civil cases filed in the 2013/14 financial year.
There were 2,601 civil cases disposed in the 2013/14 financial year. This is a 3% decrease compared to 2,669 disposals in 2012/13.
While this decrease appears significant, there are several reasons for it. First, there has been a decrease in new general proceedings filed (notably those with summary judgment applications) in the last two years which has led to a reduction in disposals. Secondly, there has been an 11% decrease in new originating applications filed in the last year. Thirdly, compared to the previous 12 months more proceedings are being disposed of by trial.
As at 30 June 2014 there were 1,928 active civil cases (awaiting hearing or judgment), a 5% decrease compared to 30 June 2013, when there were 2,028 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 18 months were “Debt recovery” at 18% of the claims filed and ‘Natural disasters – Christchurch earthquakes’ at 15%. [2]
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, in the 2013/14 financial year, 218 days, compared with 294 days in 2012/13.
Additionally waiting time to trial for over 85% of short cause [3] general proceedings on hand is less than 12 months; and for over 90% of long cause [4] general proceedings on hand is less than 18 months. Both these figures are within the performance standard timeframes set by the High Court. [5]
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 a result of the economic downturn. As at 30 June 2014, there were 610 active insolvency proceedings (awaiting hearing or judgment), a decrease of 14% compared to 30 June 2013, when there were 706 active insolvency proceedings.
There were 327 civil appeals filed in the 2013/14 financial year, this is a 2% increase in 2012/13. The number of active civil appeals (awaiting hearing or awaiting judgment) is slightly lower than last year; there were 176 active appeals as at 30 June 2014 compared to 185 active appeals as at 30 June 2013.
Statistics
[1] New Zealand Economic and Financial Overview 2012
[2] Since 1 January 2013 the High Court has recorded the types of claims filed as a general proceeding.
[3] Short cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of 5 days or less.
[4] Long cause general proceedings have an estimated hearing time of more than 5 days.