Backlogs expected in court

The number of district court cases waiting to go to trial has increased by more than 40% because of the abolition of depositions, the New Zealand Law Society claims.

This will cause bottlenecks, long delays and increased costs, it says.

Ministry of Justice figures show there were 1426 active jury trial cases in New Zealand district courts at December 31, 2008.

By December 31 last year, six months after depositions were abolished, that figure had risen to 2007, a 40.7% increase.

Figures for the Dunedin District Court mirror national figures.

Depositions were abolished last June, for reasons including sparing the victims of crime having to give evidence twice.

Those accused of a crime can now be committed to stand trial by a judge on the strength of written police evidence alone.

Law Society South Island vice-president Anne Stevens, of Dunedin, said the importance of depositions could not be underestimated.

While their core purpose had been to determine if there was a prima facie case, they had performed many other functions, such as "weeding out a whole lot of cases".

Depositions could result in amended charges and changed pleas.

She estimated about half of the cases did not proceed to trial.

"Now, there is no opportunity for this to happen, so everything goes to trial."

Delays would arise from the inevitable bottleneck and a consequence would be applications for dismissal because of the length of time to get to trial.

Depositions were heard by justices of the peace - who were not paid for their time - which meant the "weeding out process" did not use judicial time.

They were also argued by police prosecutors, but when a case went to trial, Crown solicitors prosecuted.

"Superficial justification" was used to abolish depositions and had not acknowledged the fact "the main witnesses who would find depositions traumatic", those involved in sexual crimes, never had to give evidence at depositions, Ms Stevens said.

Their evidence was always given by "hand up" and nothing had changed for them.

"The law society did vigorously oppose the removal of depositions, as we know how useful they are for the whole system, not just defendants, but everybody."

A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said a decrease in depositions hearings - or their replacement, committal hearings - and an increase in cases being committed for trial was the expected result of abolishing depositions.

In the short term, the number of active jury trial cases had increased, but it was expected many of those would be disposed of without trial, she said.

That could occur for a number of reasons including changes of plea, or successful pre-trial applications leading to cases being dismissed.

Justice Minister Simon Power this week declined to comment on the latest figures.

The Solicitor-general will review the system two years after depositions were abolished.

- debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz