About the register

Independence. Courts NZ is an independent, privately operated register. It is not a court, a tribunal, the Ministry of Justice or any other part of government, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of any of them. The name describes the subject matter, not the operator.

What the register is

Several New Zealand courts publish lists of their upcoming hearings: the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal publish hearing schedules, specialist courts publish hearing calendars, and the Māori Land Court publishes a pānui of the applications to be heard in each district. These lists are public, but each court publishes in its own place and format, most show only what is coming up, and none can be searched together.

Courts NZ collects those published lists every day and keeps them, so that a list can still be read after the hearing and a party or case can be searched across every court collected. Each line of a published list becomes one entry on the register.

What an entry means

An entry shows that a proceeding was scheduled before a particular court on a particular date. Nothing more. It does not mean anyone named was charged with, convicted of, or found liable for anything, and it does not record whether the hearing went ahead or how the proceeding was decided. Parties may be appellants, respondents, applicants or the Crown. Everyone charged with an offence is presumed innocent.

Name suppression

New Zealand law prohibits publishing names and details that a court has suppressed, and suppresses some by statute. The register therefore reproduces only lists that the courts themselves publish to the general public, in which suppressed names already appear anonymised; it does not collect District Court criminal lists, Youth Court or Family Court lists. If you believe an entry is covered by a suppression order, see Corrections and suppression: the entry is withdrawn immediately.

Where entries come from

Only from lists that courts publish on their own websites. Lists and sources names every list collected, its publisher and the address it is read from; the Court directory lists every court and tribunal with a note on whether it publishes a list. Fields are reproduced as published.

Accuracy

Courts change their schedules. The register reads each list daily and will not reflect changes made between collections. Where this register and a court's own list differ, the court's list is authoritative.

Contact

Enquiries and corrections: see Contact.