Government admits courts cash crisis

National’s Police spokesman Tony Ryall is predicting the Government will shortly commission a major financial review of the country's cash-strapped courts system.

"Government Ministers now realise they have been ignoring the problems in our courts system for too long.

“The fact that the Corrections Minister has finally admitted his department is in deep trouble highlights the scale of the cash crisis in the country’s justice system,” says Mr Ryall.

“In recent months, National has revealed a growing number of court cases being abandoned because of delays, long waiting lists for trials and record delays in getting court cases before judges.

"This is worrying the legal community, too. Criminal lawyers and prosecutors are becoming increasingly frustrated at the time taken to get cases through our clogged courts system, and the president of the Law Commission, Justice Robertson, has said our District Courts suffer from a ‘gross lack of resources’.

“National says we need more judges, better use of technology to beat the backlog in our courts and better case management practices.

“As the Government dithers on what to do, justice is denied to the innocent and the victims,” says Mr Ryall.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>