Worth Richard: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
Worth Richard: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — Second Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1759] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 National supports the Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) and I would just like to follow a comment that the earlier speaker made that New Zealand is well served by its judges. It is a curiosity I believe that this bill has been reported from the Government Administration Committee. Members will know of course that bills are referred to subject select committees. Those so-called subject select committees are chosen on the basis of the knowledge that they have. One of those committees is the Justice and Electoral Committee which deals with issues relating to the very questions that have been reported back to this Parliament by the Government Administration Committee. 
The Standing Orders of the House of Representatives are quite clear as to what the scope of activity of the Government Administration Committee is and that is to be found in Standing Order 189 in these terms. The Government Administration Committee is tasked with looking at “civil defence cultural affairs fitness sport and leisure internal affairs Pacific Island affairs Prime Minister and Cabinet racing services to Parliament State services statistics tourism women’s affairs and youth affairs”. 
I start by asking: why it is that this bill went to the Government Administration Committee when there was a subject select committee more knowledgeable about these issues. A huge opportunity has been lost with this legislation to improve in a more general way the court processes and to bring benefits to a creaky legal system. I would say that much more could have been done than the Government Administration Committee felt appropriate. I say that because what we are looking at here are three quite small substantive changes. 
We are for example increasing the maximum number of permanent Court of Appeal judges from seven to nine including the president. Well and good; I agree. I have said in the past that the Court of Appeal is a workhorse that is significantly overloaded. That is to be contrasted in substantial measure with the Supreme Court which sits idle for most of the year waiting for cases to come to it. Since the time that the Supreme Court has been in operation we have not seen I would say any significant increase in workflow to that court. There were other alternatives I would suggest that might have been considered rather than increasing the number of judges. One of the hot issues in the judiciary at the moment is what the retiring age for judges might be. It is currently set at 68. It used to be 72. There may well be a case for increasing the age of judges to 72. Strangely enough acting judges in the Supreme Court can be appointed up to the age of 75. That issue could have been considered in the context of whether it was truly necessary to increase the maximum number of permanent Court of Appeal judges. Maybe it is necessary to do both. 
But I express cynicism because of the experience that those tasked with judicial issues on the other side of the House have that these issues are not contemplated in a sufficiently broad and robust way. The reality is that we may well have right through the system too many judges. We should be looking at process improvements that would bring greater gains rather than simply trying to deal with the issue as speakers opposite often boast by increasing the number of judges in the various courts. Here was an opportunity to improve court processes in the way that I have just described—an opportunity not taken advantage of. One looks at current issues of workload across the judicial system and sees the Government strangely disinclined to act. 
Let me give a simple example which is High Court - related but the impact spreads quite quickly into the Court of Appeal in the context of the appellate pathway. At the moment the High Court is bogged down with methamphetamine cases. The reality is that where an offender faces a number of charges one of which involves methamphetamine those cases wind up in the first instance in the High Court. I have urged the Minister who has indicated that he may look at this issue in due time to give the matter some urgent consideration. If it were possible to move that block of work down into the District Court it would substantially free up the pressures that the High Court faces. Has anything been done on that? It may be that some preliminary consideration has been given to the issue but there the matter seemingly rests to the frustration and vexation of the judges. It is just another illustration where some minor changes would produce some significant gains. 
The previous speaker commented on issues of double-dipping and I will not deal with that. But I did make the comment when this bill was sent to the Government Administration Committee that the issue of delivery of judgments was surely not in the scheme of things a top-ranking issue. Surely that must be right although for myself I have no problem with what is proposed in clauses 4 and 5 relating to the delivery of judgments. 
I say to the Minister and I hope he listens that we see in this legislation again a simple response to court administration that simply fails to deal with the issues. Judges are appointed to try and decide cases. They are not there to be sucked into the minutiae of court administration. Where there is an opportunity to make change that will bring substantial gains we should surely be behind that. We have missed that opportunity here. We support this legislation but we support it with the reservation that much more could have been done. We are looking at simple clauses increasing the number of judges dealing with delivery of judgments dealing with a non-issue in many respects relating to the finality of decisions of the Court of Appeal and provisions for leave to appeal. 
The time of the Government Administration Committee was probably wasted in dealing with this legislation. The bill might have better occupied time before the Justice and Electoral Committee where some more innovative approaches could have been adopted on issues that are critical to judicial administration and the legal system.