Te Au translates as ‘current’ or ‘flow’, and Reka translates as ‘sweet, palatable, and pleasant. ‘ Te Au Reka conjures an image of a case management system that enables court processes to flow seamlessly from beginning to end.

Te Au Reka will make a significant difference to all those who access and participate in our courts and tribunals, by establishing trusted, modern, and responsive digital case and court management capability. It will move courts away from manually intensive, paper-based processes to modern and proactive digital case management. This will make it easier to engage with the courts, reduce uncertainty, improve the effectiveness of the court, and support access to justice.

The Digital Strategy for Courts and Tribunals of Aotearoa New Zealand identifies Te Au Reka as one of the judiciary’s four highest priority technology initiatives. The project is a once in a generation modernisation of the processes supporting the operation of the courts.

Te Au Reka will enable the legal profession and court participants to engage with the court through a secure digital portal (the ‘ePortal’), including filing online, accessing a calendar of upcoming events, tracking the progress of cases, receiving reminders, and accessing case documents.

Over time, Te Au Reka will support collaboration between parties, including preparing bundles of evidence for filing with the court. In the ePortal, lawyers will be able to enter case details (such as names or addresses) in an initial filing and the information will be available for re-use across subsequent filings on that case.

Courts will be able to manage the entire life cycle of a case electronically, reducing the administrative burden on the registry and the time invested in managing the risks associated with manually intensive paper processes. The Judiciary will work digitally, confident that all the information about a case is at their fingertips and their decisions are actioned promptly.

Te Au Reka will be rolled out in the Family Court first

The first jurisdiction that will benefit is the Family Court. Significant design activity has occurred since early 2024, and the build is now progressing. Te Au Reka is planned to begin rollout in the Family Court from mid-2026, for new cases.

The Government has recently agreed that design work for the next group of jurisdictions can begin from August this year. Originally, the intention was that this second phase would only focus on District Court criminal proceedings and civil proceedings (other than family proceedings). The Government and the Judiciary have approved bringing forward work in relation to High Court criminal and civil proceedings to take place at the same time, with the rollout estimated to begin from mid-2027. Dates for the rollout will be confirmed once the design activity is complete.

Finally, from late 2028, we plan to begin rolling out functionality that supports appellate processes (including proceedings in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court), as well as extending Te Au Reka to the Environment Court, Coroners Court, and the Disputes Tribunal. Further information on this will be available once planning starts next year.

Designing Te Au Reka for the user

It has been, and continues to be, very important to the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary that Te Au Reka is a joint initiative, governed and managed in a way that reflects our joint and separate responsibilities. Internationally, this has been found to be critical to the success of similarly complex projects, requiring sustained focus and commitment. A user-centred approach also requires meaningful involvement from users – not at the end but all the way through.

Last year, we completed the substantive parts of the design for the Family Court. This included testing the design using functionality that courts in other countries have found difficult to deliver. To do this, three proofs of concept (small builds) were produced to test how the solution would function before we built the real thing. These small builds enabled us to learn what worked and, more importantly, what did not work in the design. They enabled people to experience how different ways of designing the solution create new ways of working and ways of thinking about how we practice. Input from the profession into these small builds was instrumental in refining the design. The proofs of concept focused on the following areas:

• Family Court – judicial decision-making in court and in chambers, where the solution needs to support recording of detailed and complex decisions without hindering the flow of the proceedings.
• Criminal List Court – supporting judicial decision-making in a busy List Court, where the solution needs to support a high speed environment while ensuring the judge can engage meaningfully with court participants.
• High Court Civil – supporting the creation of an electronic bundle of evidence (casebook) and using it in a hearing, where the solution needs to support parties to collaborate and enable those attending the hearing to work with the casebook in real time, including making annotations and notes that only they can see.

The Family and Criminal List Court proofs of concept tested the immediate generation of decision documents, available to court participants as soon as a judge has made their decision.

A highlight of 2024 was testing the usability of the proofs of concept in mock courts in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland. Members of the Judiciary, the legal profession and court staff were involved, providing helpful feedback on design and usability. For the High Court mock court, a law firm used the proof of concept to build the bundle of evidence, acting as counsel for the parties.

The project team also worked on the design of the ePortal. This involved producing mock-ups of screens which were tested with members of the legal profession and other court participants. As with the proofs of concept, these mock-ups enabled the project team to refine the design by incorporating feedback from users including the profession.

The proofs of concept and the ePortal screen mock-ups have given us confidence that the technology underpinning Te Au Reka can meet the complex needs of the courts and court participants. They also have shown us that, if designed well, Te Au Reka will be intuitive to use, reducing the time it takes to become proficient.

Data protection and information security are key considerations in the design of Te Au Reka. Careful consideration is being given to the technical design to ensure the right safeguards are in place. As part of the design work, the project team are defining the ways Te Au Reka will work functionally: for example, the information access settings for ePortal users. These types of functional design decisions are governed by primary legislation, court rules, and principles determined by the judiciary.

Court rules will make the use of Te Au Reka mandatory for lawyers

Changes to the Family Court Rules 2002 are required to enable digital ways of working in the Family Court.

Late in 2023, the Ministry of Justice asked for input on areas of the court rules where changes may be needed to make sure Te Au Reka can operate in the Family Court. Submitters shared their thoughts on service, access to information and how the rules will accommodate the period of change between the old ways of working and new.

Following consultation, the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary have confirmed that the use of Te Au Reka will be mandatory for lawyers involved in new proceedings in the Family Court, unless exempted in certain very limited circumstances. The Ministry of Justice’s Policy team have since made an exposure draft of proposed changes to the Family Court Rules publicly available. Consultation on the draft has now closed and the Ministry’s Policy team is considering any further changes that may be needed before the rules are finalised, in consultation with the Judiciary.

In parallel, work has begun on the approach that will be adopted for rule changes to enable use of Te Au Reka in criminal and civil jurisdictions, in consultation with the Rules Committee. Work on the rule changes for these jurisdictions will also involve consultation with the legal profession. These changes will enable electronic ways of working and will require lawyers to use Te Au Reka in the courts where it is rolled out, again subject to certain very limited exemptions.

Making Te Au Reka a reality

With the Family Court design work now complete, the project team have started to build Te Au Reka for the Family Court. Getting to this stage is a major milestone that has taken years of work, including valuable input from the legal profession.

We are already working to make sure that the legal profession is supported through the change to digital ways of working in the courts. The legal profession will be represented on a newly established Change and Transition reference group. This group’s purpose is to provide advice on our approach to training, and to ensure we have the right support in place so that the profession feel confident in the transition to Te Au Reka.

Reference groups have also been set up to support the build of the ePortal. These groups include legal professionals from a range of practice areas, as well as from organisations supporting court participants such as Community Law Centres.

The build of Te Au Reka is complex with lots of moving parts, including user testing and feedback along the way. In the background, the project team is starting to prepare for the design of Te Au Reka for the District Court and High Court. As we get further into the design for these jurisdictions, user reference groups will change and evolve.

Keeping the profession informed

We have a big and exciting year ahead as we prepare for this change. You can expect to hear more from us as we work towards delivering Te Au Reka.