Election 2017 - Party Policies - Justice, Law and Order - Justice and Courts
27th May 17, 9:23am
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Justice and Courts
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- Ensure public funded mediation services for civil proceedings and continue to allow courts the ability to refer parties to mediation, further mediation, or community group conferences before granting a hearing.
- Enable Māori groups, community organizations and community class actions to be eligible for legal aid funding, and enact legislation to facilitate group action claims.
- Reduce court fees and extend the use of venues other than courtrooms; introduce the use of plain language into court procedures
- Provide training programmes and national standards for non-lawyer advocates.
- Increase funding for the community law centre network to provide increased geographical and specialist coverage
- Read more here.
- Ensure that the Public Defence Service is funded at a level where it can consistently provide high quality representation.
- Review and replace the Family Court reforms.
- Allow parties to family disputes to choose to be represented by lawyers at all stages in the proceeding.
- Ensure efficient Court Registries provide prompt hearing dates for cases so the disputes can be resolved and families can move on from disputes.
- Protect children by allowing Judges to obtain expert reports when they will assist in determining a matter (not being essential as is currently required).
- Read more here.
- Introduce whānau facilitators to ensure whānau are informed and able to discuss all their choices and the consequences (legal and nonlegal) in the family court system.
- Adapt and expand specialist courts to align with evidence – mental health, homelessness, AODT.
- Expand iwi panels, Kooti Rangatahi, Kooti Whāna, Matariki Courts across Aotearoa and increase the numbers of specialist courts including the AOD Courts, following an evaluation of the current trials underway in the Drug and Alcohol Treatment courts in Auckland.
- Establish Kooti Māori that encourages kaupapa based approaches to dealing with whenua and whānau.
- Provide more funding and resources to support marae based youth court and restorative justice programmes.
- Read more here.
Not yet available on their website.
- Improve Legal Aid funding and systems.
- Review the operation of the Disputes Tribunal to improve its performance.
- Review the jurisdiction of the District Court.
- Require greater use of technology to reduce the amount of court hearing time including e-document filing.
- Provide state-funded counselling so that only those cases which have clearly developed into a dispute need to go to mediation or a court.
- Read more here.
- Actively promote non-judicial case resolution (mediation or arbitration) for civil cases, making it a compulsory first step prior to court action.
- Support alternative and specialist courts (like drug courts).
- Ensure cases are heard in a timely manner, including ensuring sufficient funding for analysis of evidence.
- Read more here.
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