Police take legal advice

Press, 10 October 1984, Page 3

Police take legal advice

The Christchurch police are taking legal advice after a District Court judge ordered them on Monday to pay compensation to three lawyers kept waiting because of an overloaded fixture list. “The question of whether ’ a payment can properly be ordered against the police in circumstances where a court fixture becomes overloaded will be examined by our legal adviser,” said the acting head of the Christchurch police district, Superintendent John Jamieson. The matter would be referred to Police National Headquarters for a decision if necessary, he said. He said that he had never heard of an instance of costs being awarded against the police in such circumstances. Judge Bradford ordered the Police Department to pay $6O compensation to each of the lawyers, whose defended hearings had to be remanded because of insufficient time for them to be

He said that he had been concerned for some time about the problem of overloaded fixture lists. The Judge also said that he was concerned that the sovereignty of the Court was being surrendered to the prosecuting authorities. It could be getting close to a situation where what was happening was an abuse of the courts, he said. On Monday, Judge Bradford heard cases in the Children and Young Persons Court until 12.30 p.m., when left time for only one defended hearing to be partheard in the afternoon. Mr Jamieson said that the Christchurch police had an excellent relationship with the court administration and the legal profession. The court register advised the police prosecution section of the availability of judges on a roster. The police set down the number of cases to be heard each court day. “Monday is normally a full police day, but unfortunately Judge Bedford

was required in another court for the morning,” said Mr Jamieson. “The police had inadvertently scheduled a full day’s hearings.” Mr Jamieson said that the fixture list rarely became overloaded. More than 50 defended cases were heard each week and almost always there was minimum inconvenience to any of the persons involved. The police did not consider that the sovereignty of the court was being surrendered to the prosecuting authorities. “We set down cases in cooperation with the court administration,” said Mr Jamieson. “This is the most efficient system we could devise to ensure that minimum waste of time for the courts, defence counsel, police, and witnesses.” It was certainly not a system that the police had “imposed on an unwilling court administration.”

The system devised in Christchurch was unusual and, in fact, was being copied by some other District Courts, he said.