Editorial: A law unto themselves

OPINION: Hospitals which could not get 95 per cent of emergency department patients "processed" within six hours were outed last week for missing targets set by Health Minister Tony Ryall.

His efficiency drive has health boards considering sharing backroom work and staff striving to hit targets. Waikato Hospital, well behind on 65 per cent, responded that since the statistics were compiled in September it had improved markedly.

Mark the contrast, then, in other news that the man charged with murdering former Waikato resident and good samaritan Austin Hemmings in Auckland in September 2008 has been committed for trial. The trial is expected to last two weeks – but Paul Brown's case won't start until November 1, 2010, more than two years after Mr Hemmings died. The reason for the long delay in this case has not been aired, but delays in the court system are nothing new and Mr Hemmings' family is justifiably outraged at the way the legal process is stretching out their anguish. They are not alone. Figures released at the start of last year put the average wait for a commital to trial in the High Court at as long as 369 days. The figures also revealed almost 20,000 district court cases were on hold because the defendant was missing. At October 31 this year the median wait time for murder trials in the High Court was more than 600 days.

Last year police cited instances of victims asking for a trial to be dropped because of the lengthy delays. At the time, police were lobbying for the Government and courts to have all trials completed within 12 months of arrest. To quote William Gladstone, justice delayed is justice denied.

It might be suggested Justice Minister Simon Power get some tips from Mr Ryall, but his problems go far deeper. The principal Family Court judge, Peter Boshier, was also in the news last week calling for more mental health support for people involved in Family Court cases after finding 18 suspected suicides by people involved in the court in the 13 months to June. And Dame Margaret Bazley delivered a damning report on the competence and integrity of a section of this country's lawyers. Her report, concentrating on legal aid, is an embarrassment for the New Zealand Law Society. It told how at least 200 corrupt lawyers took backhanders, were ignorant of legal principles, used courtrooms as their offices and delayed or changed pleas part way through the legal process to maximise their legal aid payments. In other words, they added to the delays in the legal system because it was profitable for them to do so.

The evidence presented by Dame Margaret should be thoroughly reviewed, because it points to an absence of robust monitoring of the legal fraternity. It is pleasing the issue has been acknowledged at a high level, but many who have been victims of delays and poor lawyers will wonder why, like other aspects of the court system, it took so long. In the meantime, those exposed in the Bazley findings, as being a law unto themselves, should be named and shamed.

- © Fairfax NZ News