Allister Davis reports on court and LSA operations in Christchurch
New Zealand Law Society Canterbury-Westland branch President Allister Davis and barrister Liz Bulger attended a meeting with Police prosecutors, the Ministry of Justice and LSA representatives on Friday, 4 March, and filed the following report:
Courts operations: The Ministry of Justice is running essential services only and is dealing with other matters on an administrative basis. This is likely to continue for some time, although things will change once a building has been obtained which can be used for the Court. The Court building is likely to be out of operation for some months, so the ministry is desparately seeking another venue.
At present, the Rangiora/Prison courts will be the only ones operating.
Duty Solicitor: A roster has been put together for the week beginning 7 March. Hopefully those who are Duty Solicitors will have received at least a text message about their allocated day.
We will do the roster on a weekly basis as more lawyers make contact with me. We are attempting to give everybody at least one day.
LSA have advised us that in these special circumstances your travel time can be added to the invoice.
Legal Services Agency: I have complied a list of lawyers with cell phone numbers and home addresses and provided that to LSA. They are going to send the letters of assignments to your home addresses however the letter to the client will only disclose your cell phone number.
I have also obtained a list of legal aid files which contains details such as name of the accused, LSA number and charges faced. I need to split the spreadsheet into individual lawyers once I have done that I will arrange for your list to be provided to you. That ought to at least provide you all with a starting point to enable you to reconstruct files.
I have gone back to LSA to ensure that all details of active/open files will be provided.
You can continue to send invoices to the Christchurch LSA office and they will be redirected for payment.
If you have any outstanding invoices for payment and have copies could you also send those marked “copy”.
Bail Variations: Where you have clients who have relocated away from Christchurch who wish to have their addresses varied you should advise them to go to their nearest court to seek that variation.
Clients in Christchurch who are seeking variations of bail should ring the court and they will be asked to provide their name,address and contact details. The Court will then contact them when they are able to attend to the matter. At very least there will be a record of the application on file if it becomes an issue later on.
Disclosure from the Crown: For those of you who cannot get your files because the building has been destroyed the Crown has indicated that they will make full disclosure to you upon request. Given the dates jury matters have been pput out to there is really no urgency. Obviously as the cordon is lifted and access gained to the offices you will be in a better position to address this matter.
High Court: All High Court matters have been adjourned.
The Wellington High Court is in a position to deal with Christchurch proceedings including appeals. You can contact them to arrange dates and venues. They will accept postal and electronic filings.
Cell phones at the prison: Would those of you who are duty at the prison please note that the prison is going to enforce the “no cell phone” policy inside the prison, so please ensure that they are left in your car or at the gatehouse reception area.
General: If there are any issues or questions you have please don’t hesitate to ring me on my cell phone 027 227 533 or Liz Bulger on 027 488 2760.