The
Justice Ministry says it’s in the very early stages of
looking at mobile courts because continuing to build big
courthouses won’t work.
Its executives in their
long-term insights briefing to a parliamentary select
committee this morning said new tech made it a very
consequential time for the justice system.
Corporate
services deputy secretary Dr Kelvin Watson told MPs there
would be impact on bricks and mortar.
“This is very
much twinkle-in-the-eye, but, you know, what would a mobile
court look like?” said Watson.
“So a court that we
actually could move around from small town to small
town.
“So these sort of things to keep thinking about
because we are conscious that just continuing to invest in
large courthouse buildings as we have historically done
won’t work.”
They were also looking at constructing
specific remote-participation video-link courtrooms that
were much smaller, or using community facilities, Watson
said.
A Treasury report showed that the ministry’s
remote participation services project was rated in the worst
category of ‘red’ by a high-risk investment assurance review
in the April-June quarter last year. A red rating denoted
“successful delivery appears to be unachievable”.
The
government is updating the law around audio and audio-visual
links in courts, aiming at more efficiency.
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Three big
new builds costing hundreds of millions of dollars were
underway with designs that allowed more flexibility as needs
and tech changed.
Chief executive Andrew Kibblewhite
said the justice system would remain human
centred.
However, this was a “genuinely consequential
moment in history of the courts” that would shape justice
for generations.
Antiquated, paper-based systems were
getting in the way. Technology used well could help people
get access, and with problems of rising costs, workforce
constraints and public trust, or used poorly could undermine
trust, he said.
The ministry’s master project, Te Au
Reka, to set up a new digital caseflow management system,
was going well “in most respects” and should be delivered in
the second half of 2026, Kibblewhite
said.
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