Latest News

2024

• Notice of Special General Meeting. Notice is hereby given of the Criminal Bar Associations Special General Meeting (SGM) to be held at the University of Auckland Business School and via Zoom on Saturday 3 August 2024 at 4.15pm.

• The Criminal Bar Association provided feedback to Corrections and the Ministry of Justice on the proposal to move defendants remanded in custody closer to their trial location three weeks before trial. See here for the Ministry of Justice's response to our letter and the proposed changes that will be implemented.

• Legal Eagles Soaring From Their Eyries – click here to read an opinion piece penned by CBA committee member Steven Zindel.

• Sentencing:  Discounts for youth: click here to read (High Court Judge’s clerk) Kelci Alderton-Armstrong’s recent New Zealand Law Review article on “The Judicial Approach to the Youth Discount in Aotearoa New Zealand”

•  The CBA sent a letter to Legal Aid in response to the implications of other funded reports due to the defunding of section 27 reports. You can read this here. My thanks are due to James Gurnick from our executive committee who helped with this.

• The CBA sent submissions to the Chief District Court Judge on the proposed draft bail protocol. You can read the submissions here. A huge thank you to executive committee members Annabel Ives, Emma Priest and Sarah Saunderson-Warner who worked on these.

• The Chief District Court Judge has released a Limited Licence Practice Note. His Honour issued the Practice Note in order to get greater consistency in how applications for a limited licence under the Land Transport Act 1998 are dealt with in the District Court. You can read this here

• SC 75/2022 Justin Richard Burke v The King - 

  The Supreme Court’s decision in Burke was released today - the decision can be found here. The decision relates to section 66(2) party liability in the context of homicide (manslaughter). Many thanks are due to Chris Wilkinson-Smith who appeared as lead counsel for the Criminal Bar Association as intervener, together with Adam Simperingham.  Chris and Adam received help from Associate Professor James Mehigan from Canterbury University Law Faculty, and Rory Bevins (University of Otago/Woodward Chrisp).

• Quentin Duff has asked us to extend an invitation to our CBA members (and anyone else) to attend the Larry Pozner Cross examination workshop this weekend. Details can be found here and the agenda here. Quentin has arranged to live stream this event, at the cost of $200 plus GST. This will make the event more accessible for lawyers who do not live in Auckland. If you wish to register to attend on-line, please email your expression of interest to Pozner@mataichambers.com and type STREAMING EOI into the subject heading.

• The District Court Annual Report has been released. District-Court-Annual-Report-2023.pdf (districtcourts.govt.nz)

• The CBA have written to the Minister of Justice about the concerns held for the state of the legal profession. Letter to the Minister of Justice 18.03.24.pdf

• The CBA have written to legal aid asking for them to comment about recent slow payments which some members have recently spoken to us about. The commissioner’s response is attached here. Response from Legal Services Commissoner.pdf

• Our own Kris Gledhill has authored this article on the scrapping of funding for s27 reports. https://theconversation.com/ending-legal-aid-for-cultural-reports-at-sentencing-may-only-make-court-hearings-longer-and-costlier-223627

• In August 2023 the Office of the Inspectorate of the Department of Corrections issued a report on the prison management of pregnant women and mothers of infant children.  The report “Mothers and Babies” examines the management of pregnant women, those in prison with a child in the community and opportunities for mothers with children in the community to maintain support of parental relationships.  The conclusion is that all three of the women’s prisons have well-resourced and inviting spaces for mothers to care for their children under 24 months old but that the facilities are under used and their potential only partially fulfilled.  The report will be of interest to practitioners acting for women prisoners/defendants. FINAL Inspectorate thematic report - Mothers and Babies.pdf

2023

• His Honour Judge David Harvey has provided commentary on Christopher Luxon's recent speech he gave at the 87th National Party conference.
  Please click on the link to read more:  Luxon on Sentencing | The IT Countrey Justice (wordpress.com) 

• The 2023 budget did not provide increases in legal aid funding, particularly the duty lawyer rate remained frozen at its 2006 rate. A Special General Meeting of CBA will be called to discuss action and to consider legal advise regarding professional obligations while pursuing this campaign.

2022

• In November 2022 a CBA group met with the Minister of Justice to discuss topics including; legal aid, name suppression, judicial resources, name suppression and prisoner issues.

• Following the 2022 CBA meet with the Legal Services Commissioners to raise concerns that the announced budget increases to legal aid were not resulting in substantial increases to legal aid and particularly noted the low rates for duty solicitors and fixed fees. 

• Successful CBA Conference in Auckland 5 - 7 August, this included the new Minister of Justice the Honourable Kiri Allan, the Chief Justice Justice Winkelmann , Justice Kos, President Cooper, Chief High Court Judge Thomas and Chief District Court Judge Taumaunu.  Conference Dinner at the Auckland Museum.

• CBA has appeared in Court of Appeal and Supreme Court as intervenor on issues including murder sentencing and access to mental health services and hopes to appear in further cases in 2023.

• CBA making submissions to parliamentary select committees and participating in the CPIP workstream consultation process and contributing to  High Court Disclosure working group.