District Court Arrangements for Level 3 in Auckland

The Auckland and Manukau District Courts have provided further details of arrangements for working at level 3. Practitioners should also refer to the Chief Justice's announcement and the Courts of New Zealand Covid 19 Information page for the latest updates.

Manukau Court

Registrar’s Court Update in Level 3 (effective from tomorrow, Wednesday 19 August)

• All work scheduled to be heard in the Registrar’s Court at Manukau will be administratively adjourned, with the exception of family violence matters where those defendants are already represented by counsel
• Regarding any family violence matters (scheduled in the Registrar’s court), if a request for an adjournment is not received by the court before the day it is scheduled, the family violence matter will be called in the Judges’ List Court on the date and time scheduled.
• The Court Registry will be working to administratively adjourn all other matters scheduled for Registrar’s Court for the duration of Level 3

JAT Callover Courts

The Court will be aiming to deal with all JAT Callovers administratively and will be trialling this for JAT Callover Court scheduled for this Thursday 20 August

Accordingly, for all matters to be called for the JAT Callover Court, the Registry will email the parties either: 

• A fixture date (if the matter meets the criteria for priority); or
• Notifying the parties the matter has been adjourned to another callover date.

In order for these to be dealt with administratively and in an effective way, parties will need to respond to the Registry before 4pm the day before each JAT Callover Court where the matter is scheduled to be called.

If no response is received by the 4pm deadline, a JAT Callover Court will need to go ahead at 9am for the matter to be called.  

Auckland Court

Auckland District Court advised on 15 August that it will continue to run all of its non-jury courts on Monday. The only change to this is a Community Magistrate will sit in Court 1 for the week.

Any defendant, in a jury or Judge Alone trial, remanded at large or on bail for a callover will be excused attendance if counsel provide the presiding Judge with an assurance counsel is in good contact with the defendant. Applications in advance in writing are not required.

In addition, counsel are reminded of their ability to attend such callovers by VMR, provided arrangements have been made beforehand. If there is to be resolution or there is other good reason for the defendant to attend then that should happen.

Defendants in custody will appear by AVL.

It is intended Judge Alone Trials will continue at Alert Level 3.