National’s proposed solution to the slow justice process is to increase the threshold that must be reached before a defendant can elect trial by jury.
But as public submissions closed those in the legal community questioned the efficacy of such a move.
The maximum penalty of a charge dictates when a person can go to jury trial.
At present, it is two years’ jail, which was increased from three months in 2013.
"This government is committed to reducing delays in the courts so people can access timely and fair justice, and move on with their lives," he said.
He said change needed to be seriously considered if it could lead to those involved in jury trials being dealt with in a more timely manner.
The government sought feedback from the public on whether the threshold should be increased to three, five or seven years.
Former Dunedin District Court judge Kevin Phillips said he did not believe the proposal would clear the backlog if implemented.
"If they’re going to increase the jurisdiction before [you can] elect trial by jury, then you’re going to increase the [amount of people going to] judge-alone trial to where it just becomes totally unmanageable," he said.
He thought the status quo should remain and resources should be spent on more judges, more facilities and more staff.
Dunedin barrister Anne Stevens, KC, said she had seen nothing to support the idea raising the threshold would make much difference to the clogged system.
"This government does not use an evidence-based approach to its proposed legislation."
Mrs Stevens said, though, it was important for defendants to have the right to elect a jury trial.
"It is members of your own community, 12 of them, agreeing that it’s proved beyond reasonable doubt," she explained.
"So if they’re all convinced or they’re all not convinced, it’s got to carry a lot of weight."
Mrs Stevens said a better solution to get people through the court system more swiftly was to make the most of every hour.
"My view is the District Court doesn’t sit enough hours ... There’s a lot of downtime."
She also thought the justice system could be improved by streamlining current processes.
University of Otago law lecturer Yasmin Olsen said while it was important to address delays in court, the government should consider all other solutions before it changed the threshold for electing a jury trial.
She said the backlog from Covid-19 and defendants or victims missing court appearances were all factors which led to delays.
"The modern criminal justice system is resource intensive. We rightly take more time to understand mental health and intellectual disabilities that people have, defendants, victims and witnesses as well," she said.
She also said because of technological advancements, more electronic evidence was being used in trials, which took longer to sit through and prepare. She was concerned the proposal might not effectively clear the overloaded system, Ms Olsen said.
"The worry is that if those other causes of delay are not properly understood and addressed, then we change the threshold and then we’re back there again in another decade," Ms Olsen said.
"There are other options other than just the blunt tool of pushing that threshold up."
Labour justice spokesman Duncan Webb said the threshold was already "quite high" by international standards.
"Pushing it out to three years or five years becomes a bit of a slippery slope," Dr Webb said.
"The problem is that the test that’s being used is not a good proxy."
He said another issue causing a backlog was the court’s paper-based system.
"Better case management and digitisation is actually where the energy should be going," he said.
"It’s a real danger to say the courts are clogged up, and therefore we’re going to take away the right to jury trial for people who are going to prison."
The next legislative step would be for a final regulatory impact statement to be developed to inform policy decisions, he said.
