Worth Richard: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2253] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 At first blush Part 2 does not seem all that important. After all it comprises only three short clauses. But as one delves into the wording one sees immediately just what the repercussions of this important part are. I would like to take up three points that emerge so clearly from those three clauses. 
The first proposition I would like to advance to members is simply to say there is a well-known legal tag: it is in the public interest that there be an end to litigation— 
Christopher Finlayson 
: Say it in Latin. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
:—and a number of constraints justify that course. Mr Finlayson has invited me to put that tag into Latin but I am going to leave it for later calls that he makes and indicate that words like “ut sit finis litium” or words to that effect somehow pick up some old schoolboy or law-school Latin—not quite correctly I suspect. But the point is that it is in the public interest that there be an end to litigation. A curious feature of the appeal process which is observable in all common law jurisdictions is that as cases progress through a hierarchy upwards about one-third of them are reversed. That is so whether they are in Canada Australia the UK or New Zealand. That I guess reflects the man-made nature of the legal system—that legitimate opinions can be held at different levels of the process and produce different results. 
That is why we see in clause 7—and this is the first point I am seeking to make in the first I hope of a number of calls—the reference to appeals against the decisions of courts being final. We see in that clause that although it states that a decision is final there are some outs there are some qualifications and there are some exceptions. Exceptions are given for decisions of the High Court to be taken both to the Court of Appeal or in “exceptional circumstances” to the Supreme Court. There is no definition as to what “exceptional circumstances” might be. Clearly it is undesirable that there be an appeal process that will permit multiple rights of appeal to be exercised with the consequences I have indicated. That is the primary point I sought to make in relation to Part 2. 
But I cannot help but make the comment in response to what Mr Fairbrother said that his views in connection with this legislation—probably more appropriately made in Part 2—would cause immense offence to Court of Appeal judges. He told us in Committee tonight that the Court of Appeal is running along a track of populism. That is wrong; it is mischievous. The Court of Appeal and especially this particular Court of Appeal does not feel that it has an opportunity to demonstrate judicial activism judicial creativity and whereas he is quick to condemn the Court of Appeal for its decision making he needs to reflect that in the very particular areas he identified it is interpreting legislation passed by this Government. Much of that legislation National finds substantial fault with. 
So there it is—decisions of the court are to be final but subject to a number of exceptions and those exceptions are to be exercised by leave to appeal. It is generally the case in respect of such leave provisions that they are available both in the court appealed from and in the court the intending appellant seeks to access. That is generally so here except that we have a situation in terms of our legislation where the Supreme Court exercises an exclusive right to determine what cases come to it. That is why the Supreme Court can be as busy or as slack as it chooses to be because it can simply refuse to grant leave and so control its workload in that way.