Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says he is closely watching the UK’s plan to scrap jury trials for offences carrying sentences of less than three years, a key change the New Zealand Government is also considering to help speed up court processes.
“We’re watching with great interest, it’s been an issue that’s been raised here in the context of trying to speed up the processes of the courts,” he said.
“There’s been long delays and jury trials of course take much longer.”
UK Justice Secretary David Lammy has announced that jury trials for charges with a likely sentence of less than three years in prison will be scrapped in England and Wales, with a judge alone trial the only option.
He said the “bold” reforms were necessary to tackle the “emergency” situation with a backlog in England and Wales of nearly 78,000 cases.
“We’re all proud of our justice system rooted in the Magna Carta but we must never forget that it implores us not to deny or delay justice. When victims are left waiting for years justice is effectively denied to them.”
The UK has proposed to scrap jury trials for offences carrying sentences of less than three years, a change the Justice Minister says New Zealand is also considering to help speed up court processes. (Source: 1News)
Other planned changes announced by the UK Government included no jury trial option for fraud and complex financial crime and courts deciding where all cases are heard, with defendants no longer able to choose a jury option for offences such as burglary and drug offences.
The overhaul has sparked outrage from some fellow Labour members of Parliament, opposition MPs and the legal profession in the UK, with arguments that the jury trial reduction is “undemocratic” and risks public “trust in justice”.
Legislation still needed to be introduced to implement the changes.
In New Zealand, defendants currently have the choice of a jury or judge-alone trial for category 3 crimes such as aggravated assault or dangerous driving.
Under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, defendants have the right to choose a jury trial if charged with a crime that, if convicted, carries a likely imprisonment of two years or more.
Last September, the Ministry of Justice sought public feedback on restricting jury trials in New Zealand, with the options considered being the threshold changing to three, five or seven years.
Goldsmith said there were mixed views on the proposal and that he had no timeline for implementing a change to the law.
“It’s quite a complex area as you can imagine, it’s some fundamental constitutional issues so we’ll take the time to work our way through it.”
The New Zealand Law Society opposed raising the jury threshold.
“We haven’t seen any recent evidence that changing jury trial threshold would be sufficient to help with case backlogs,” Chris Macklin, barrister and convenor for the society’s Criminal Law Committee said.
He argued for greater resourcing instead, saying: “The New Zealand justice system holds itself appropriately to very high standards”, likening it to a “Maserati expectation” being run on a “Suzuki Swift budget”.
“At some point we simply need more courtrooms, more judges, more hearing capacity.”
Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann said the justice system was under “considerable stress” in her 2024 annual report released in September this year.
The District Court backlog stood at 6660 criminal cases in July 2024, down from more than 9000 at the peak in January 2022. In the High Court, the time to trial has returned to pre-Covid-19 timeliness in most regions, though delays remain significant.
“The delays are significant. The problems need to be acknowledged,” Macklin said.
“We’re seeing anything from 12 to 18 months, even in excess of two years in some very serious cases in the High Court, particularly grave delays in the High Court circuits in the Far North, around the Whangārei circuit… Rotorua, Hamilton, Tauranga also significant delays.”
Winkelmann’s report states the optimal time for preparing for a complex criminal trial is no less than 12 months.
The number of prisoners awaiting trial or sentence in December 2024 was 4175, up from 3930 prisoners the previous year.
Other initiatives aimed at reducing delays have already been introduced—in particular the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, which raised the jury trial threshold from offences punishable by more than three months’ imprisonment to two years.
