More Supreme Court centres suggested

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 10

More Supreme Court centres suggested

The Supreme Court never sat in Whangarei, or Tauranga, or Rotorua, all of which would serve as centres of population much greater than some centres in the South Island where the Supreme Court did sit, the Chief Justice (Sir Richard Wild) said in a public address at the University of Canterbury last evening.

“The face of Supreme Court justice should be seen in the main centres of population regularly, subject only to the limit of the capacity of the judges to travel and the provision of proper court facilities,” the Chief Justice said.

“In fact, very few changes in sitting centres have been made all this century. The number of annual sittings at Greymouth, Nelson, Blenheim and Timaru has been reduced to three, and the number at Palmerston North and Hamilton vastly increased; but the 15 towns at which the Court sits have remained the same for many years.

“It is not that the judges ignore changes in the density of population, but that they are restricted by the facilities available, or the lack of them.

“Figures now available from the recent census show that the population served from Greymouth is about 33,000 and the population around Blenheim about 31,000. Timaru serves about 56,000 and Nelson about 58,000. In each of these South Island centres, then, the Supreme Court provides for 31,000 to 58,000 citizens. “But it does not sit at all

in Whangarei, which is now the centre for 98,000 people; or Tauranga or Rotorua, either of which would serve 170,000 people in the area from Taupo north to the Bay of Plenty. “That is why I said recently that the places where the Court sits require review from time to time.”