Digital Strategy for Courts and Tribunals - Draft for Consultation

Overview

Digital Strategy for Courts of New Zealand  

The Digital Strategy addresses how technology can enable courts to do better what they do now, capitalising on the lessons learned about use of technology in the courts during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also looks at how technology can enable courts to administer justice in new ways to better serve the community, including those whose justice needs are not 
currently being met. The Government’s announcement of significant investment in digitising court processes makes this especially timely.

“Reducing costs, simplifying court processes, providing better information to participants, and providing better online tools for management of court processes, will all improve access to justice,” - The Right Honourable Helen Winkelmann, Chief Justice

The Digital Strategy sets out to answer three key questions:

• How can digital technology be used to support the administration of justice by the judiciary? 
• How will technology enable the courts to do better what they do now? 
• How will technology enable the courts to find new ways to meet unmet justice needs, to support just, timely and efficient dispute resolution processes and outcomes, and to support open justice?

At the request of the Chief Justice, Court of Appeal Judge Justice David Goddard has led development of the Strategy. Justice Goddard conducted interviews with Heads of Bench, Ministry of Justice officials, external stakeholders, and technology experts. Insights from those interviews, along with local and international research, informed the preparation of 
the Strategy.

The draft digital strategy document is open for consultation until 30 September 2022.

To begin providing feedback, please click on "Online Survey" below. To view the document as a whole, click on the link in "Related" below.