Wilkinson Kate: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Wilkinson Kate: Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:630;Page:2246] 
KATE WILKINSON (National) 
: 
 In rising to speak to Part 1 of the Judicature Amendment Bill (No 3) which relates to the procedures and constitution of the Court of Appeal I would like to deal more with the constitution of the Court of Appeal than its procedures. Although I have been in practice for 26 years prior to my change of career I have to confess never to have been in the premises of the Court of Appeal whatsoever. 
This bill does increase the number of permanent Court of Appeal judges from six to eight including the President and this move continues with the theme of access to justice which we spoke about earlier this evening in relation to the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2). Increasing the number of judges in the Court of Appeal certainly should reduce the pressures of the workload and the caseload there and it should lead to earlier hearing dates and quicker decisions. 
I say at this point I have the highest regard for the quality and calibre of our Court of Appeal judges in New Zealand but I also have to wonder however why on earth we have total disregard for some of the best legal brains of Britain and why we have abolished the right of appeal to the Privy Council. The Privy Council did not cost New Zealanders one solitary cent; the Court of Appeal and the increased personnel of the Court of Appeal will—which is why we must be satisfied that the current workload and pressures need to be eased by the passing of this bill and by increasing the number of judges to eight. 
I would like to have a little interlude and perhaps revisit why on earth we are in this situation. We have to have regard for the effect of the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council and the creation of the Supreme Court as our highest court and what effect that has had on the Court of Appeal. As I understand it the effect was that five of our Court of Appeal judges went straight from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court—hence the need to now increase the number of judges in the Court of Appeal. One would have thought that some basic succession planning or forethought might be in order or this Parliament might even have thought about a hybrid situation of allowing offshore judges to sit on the Supreme Court thereby reducing and relieving the pressure on our own Court of Appeal judges. 
History has shown that the number of cases and appeals going to the Court of Appeal is increasing. My colleague Mr Finlayson rather wisely I thought referred in the second reading of this bill to the number of cases being dealt with in both the criminal jurisdiction and the civil jurisdiction. In 2003 the Court of Appeal dealt with 630 cases being 482 criminal cases and 148 civil cases; in 2004 the number of cases had increased to 506 criminal cases and 148 civil cases. But it is not just the number of cases that our learned Court of Appeal judges must hear; it is also important to consider the length of time they take to deliver those decisions and judgments. 
With the proviso that this is not to be interpreted or taken in any way whatsoever as a criticism of the Court of Appeal judges we can relate instances of cases taking over 1 year for the decision to be made and for the judgments to be delivered in one case and over 7 months in another case. To my mind that is simply not adequate access to justice. So I believe we must look at this bill in a holistic way on the basis of access to justice which is not too dissimilar to our approach to the issue being debated previously relating to legal aid. Just as under the Legal Services Amendment Bill (No 2) we must ensure that there are sufficient legal providers—that is lawyers—to cope with the demand of the users of legal aid—that is the clients—so we must ensure that in the Court of Appeal there are sufficient judges to meet the demands of the caseloads and of the appellants. Our judges are overworked; we have anecdotal evidence of that.