Worth Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Worth Richard: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:629;Page:1257] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 This is a resumption of debate in response to the statement that the Prime Minister made on Tuesday and a number of speakers from all sides of the House have preceded me in making comments on her statement. One of the clear themes that has emerged is that of improper spending by the Government in order to win the last election and almost half a million dollars is involved. Perhaps that is small beer by United States standards but New Zealand has never before seen the likes of such excesses. 
I do not wish to deal in any further detail with those issues which have been traversed by others but personally I was disappointed that the Prime Minister in her statement on Tuesday deliberately chose to say nothing about the important issue of access to justice. Perhaps the commitment that the Government earlier made has been abandoned. I certainly hope not because the present Government in the last session identified as one of the two justice sector outcomes: “A fairer more credible and more effective justice system” as “Being a system in which people’s interactions are underpinned by the rule of law and justice services are more equitable credible and accessible”. I would like in the short time that I have available to talk about the issue of access to justice. That is the Government’s laudable objective but in fact there has been a substantial shortfall in its fulfilment. The two illustrations of that—which are blatant—relate to first of all issues relating to court fees and access to justice and second issues relating to legal aid rates and access to justice. 
On the first issue it is not that the entities of Parliament have been reluctant to tackle the issue of court fees and I refer in particular to the work of the Regulations Review Committee. To put the issue in context it is really no more complicated than this. In 2001 under the present Government regulations set new fees for civil proceedings in the Court of Appeal in the High Court in the District Court and in the disputes tribunals. Most of the fees increased under the regulations and the increases ranged in magnitude up to an astonishing 650 percent. 
Anne Tolley 
: 650 percent? 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: Six hundred and fifty percent. For example in the High Court a fee for filing proceedings increased from $120 to $900. In the District Court a fee for filing proceedings increased from $50 to $120. That was in 2001. But the Government was determined to do worse so in 2004 a further set of regulations imposed further swingeing increases. 
The Government may dismiss those matters airily but I do not think that in constitutional terms they can be so readily dismissed. The issues directly relate to access to the courts which is a clear constitutional principle. I believe that the right of access to the courts ranks as one of the universally recognised fundamental principles and of course it is also a fundamental human right codified in New Zealand law by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. It is a right that underlies the promotion and protection of all other rights. In order to promote and protect the right of access to justice the Government has a duty to provide the necessary machinery for the realisation of that right and to make the machinery affordable. There cannot be if the rule of law is important anything other than equal access to the courts and access to the courts should not be determined by one’s financial means. 
There is a line “The courts are open to everyone—like the Ritz Hotel” and the sadness behind that line is that for those who are wealthy access to the courts in terms of cost is no barrier. Of course for those who are not rich legal aid should be freely available. For those in the middle there are often significant challenges. So although barriers to access to justice already exist for many people the Government has a duty to ensure those barriers remain minimal. The court system is founded on the principle that all people must be equal before the law and all must have access to the law. The contribution that makes to the maintenance of a stable and civil society lends weight to the case that the State has a responsibility to ensure access. 
A wealth of decided court authority and decided case law from jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom New Zealand the European Court of Human Rights and Canada accepts that the right of access to justice is a fundamental principle. But that is not the case in New Zealand it would seem—or in any event not in New Zealand under this Government. So we now await a decision of this Government on the outcome of clear recommendations made by the Regulations Review Committee as to what should be done about the level of court fees. That is against the background that the Regulations Review Committee a non-partisan committee of this Parliament including Labour members and—as Dr Mapp has said—excellently chaired came to the unanimous view that a review of the regulations that set civil court fees should be undertaken. Why should it be undertaken? Because quite clearly the committee concluded that the fee increases the Government has embarked upon have a demonstrable effect on the use of the court and constitute a barrier to access to justice. That is one illustration— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: The former Attorney-General grins about it. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: I am not sure whether that is so; it may in fact be a smirk of guilt rather than a grin of satisfaction. 
Let me take up a second illustration. It is more recent and in some ways one could argue more significant. It relates to the whole issue of legal aid. The issue of legal aid has been before the Justice and Electoral Committee in terms of the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) which is shortly to be reported. In that legislation there is a substantial hole which is that the Government has refused to address the need to fairly remunerate lawyers who undertake legal aid work. So it is again an example of a barrier that the Government is not prepared to deal with—a barrier that exists to accessing justice. 
One of the things that the committee was told in its financial review of the Ministry of Justice on 2 February—just a few days ago—was that no consideration of legal aid rates would be considered until after the bill was passed. The Prime Minister said that well it was a Budget item. Of course it is a Budget item. It is an issue that touches the civil purse in that further funding is required. What was of concern to a number of members on the committee was that the work done by ministry officials to date indicated that because there was no shortage of legal aid lawyers ready to undertake legal aid work at the current rates there was simply no problem. Now I am not sure whether the naivety of the officials can be visited on this Government but clearly that view is stark in its naive and facile approach to a readily apparent injustice. 
There is a very compelling case for substantial increases in legal aid remuneration rates. The current rates are effectively as they were in 1996 and are well short of the rates paid by the State for other types of legal services. I would say it is scarcely satisfactory on any view of it that legal aid remuneration rates have remained unchanged since then.