Update on Criminal Bar situation
New Zealand Law Society Canterbury-Westland branch President Allister Davis advises that as of 28 March, custodial sentencing matters will be called in the Rangiora District Court.
Allister reports as follows:
There are two weeks in Rangiora namely the “non Rangiora” week and the “Rangiora” week (the schedules are available online).
In a “non Rangiora” week there will be:
- 4 sentencing matters called on Monday at 2:15 pm.
- 4 sentencing matters called at 11:45 am and 4 sentencing matters at 2:15 pm on Wednesday and Thursday, ie 8 per day.
- Friday will deal with Crown Sentencing matters. These will be called as follows: 2 sentencing matters at 11:45am and 3 sentencing matters at 2:15 pm.
Crown sentencing takes considerably longer than summary sentencing and that is the reason there are less sentencing matters on the Friday.
In a “Rangiora” week there will be:
- 4 sentencing matters called on Monday at 2:15 pm.
- 4 sentencing matters called on Tuesday at 11:45 am and 4 sentencing matters called at 2:15 pm.
This allows for 12 sentencing matters on a “Rangiora” week and 25 sentencing matters on a “non Rangiora” week.
At present there are 71 prisoners in custody awaiting sentencing. This includes Crown matters.
If you have a client in custody awaiting sentence might I suggest you alert the Court using the christchurch.dc@justice.govt.nz email address.
The Minsitry of Justice has undertaken to advise counsel of any sentencing matters as soon as they are able. Generally this will be done by either email or a phone call to your cell phone.
Sentencing “slots” will be allocated on a daily basis for ongoing custodial guilty pleas and these will be provided to the Court taker. You will be able to obtain dates from the court taker prior to Court starting in order to speed up the process.
Pre-sentence reports
The Community Probation Service has advised that where we have clients in custody who change their plea/plead or who have been remanded in custody awaiting a report (and one hasn’t been done), they ought to be able to provide pre-sentence reports within 1 week where there are no appendices called for and 2 weeks where appendices are requested.
The reports are to be provided to Ministry of Justice upon completion. These reports are to be provided to MoJ two days before summary sentencing matters and three days before Crown sentencing matters.
MoJ has undertaken to scan them and send them by email to counsel.
Summaries of fact and other material
If you do not have your file and need a summary or other material that has previously been disclosed to you then you need to contact either the Crown (Chris Lange cjl@raydon.co.nz or c.lange@xtra.co.nz ) or the Police (Ashley.Tabb@police.govt.nz). Both will provide you with copies of documents you require.
Sentencing Protocols
- All sentencings should take place in an open Court.
- All Summaries of fact and conviction lists ought to be on the Court file.
- Any pre-sentence report and appendices should be on the Court file.
- The Judges are not insisting that Counsel file written submissions however that does not diminish our professional responsibilities to ensure that the Court is informed of all relevant matters. Where possible we ought to be doing our very best to file written submissions for Crown sentencing matters.
- If you do file submissions or refer to written material/authorities this must be done by 12 noon two days before sentencing for summary cases and by 12 noon three days before sentencing for Crown cases. These submissions can be sent by email to christchurch.dc@justice.govt.nz.
- The Crown has indicated that they will endeavour to ensure submissions are filed in accordance with the sentencing practice note as far as practicable. These submissions will then be emailed to Counsel.
- Please ensure that pre earthquake addresses for Home D and Community Detention are still suitable prior to a sentencing matter. This may require Counsel to ring Probation.
- There is an expectation that we will have seen our clients and have full instructions before the sentencing date and have full instructions on the day of sentencing.
Bail Applications
All applications for bail and variations of bail should be emailed to christchurch.dc@justice.govt.nz.
Prison Court
This will continue to run for some short time and accordingly duty solicitors will continue to be rostered there and at Rangiora.
Jury Trials
Hopefully you will have all seen Judge Crosbie’s minute.
If you believe you have a client in custody awaiting trial and the trial would be suitable for Timaru then please contact Chris Lange to discuss the logistics.
I cannot stress how important it is that the Criminal Bar is proactive in this regard….not only for trials but pre-trial applications and sentencing indications. We have to utilise this time wisely and productively.
Trials are due to kick off on 4 April. I understand that there are pre-trial matters in for next week.
The link up with AVL is well underway and should be used as often as possible.
Possible other courts
We are still working closely with the Judges, Crown and Ministry of Justice to secure some sort of court(s) in Christchurch but once again the question is how long is a piece of string! I have meetings arranged that hopefully will bear fruit. I can advise that various Ministers of the Crown are now involved in the process.
General
As you can no doubt see we are trying to get a degree of normality back. This will require a large degree of cooperation from all stakeholders, which to date has been very forthcoming. If we as the Criminal Bar can make this work then our income streams come back on tap.
Obviously there maybe pitfalls/shortcomings and issues that have not been addressed or for that matter even considered but we now have to think outside the square in order to conduct business.
I know that I can rely on the cooperation of you all to ensure the smooth running of all the Courts.
I am attempting to build up the email list so if there are any practitioners you know are not on the email list could you provide me with those details.
I will also ask NZLS to put a copy of all future emails on the web site.
If you have any concerns/thoughts or issues about any matter raised here could you let me know. My email address is debandal@xtra.co.nz.