Policy
Corrections and suppression
Entries reproduce hearing lists that courts publish. A request can report a suppression order, correct a transcription error, or ask that an entry be withheld from the register.
Suppression orders
If an entry identifies a person or details covered by a suppression order, or by statutory suppression (for example under sections 200 to 205 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011, or in Youth Court or Family Court proceedings), email contact@courtsnz.org with the register ID. The entry is withdrawn as soon as the email is read, before any review, and stays withdrawn unless it is confirmed that no suppression applies.
What the register never collects
- District Court criminal lists, which are made available to accredited media rather than the public;
- Youth Court and Family Court lists;
- any list that is not published by a court to the general public.
Corrections
Where an entry does not match the list the court published, it is corrected or withdrawn. Where the court later changed its list, the entry is updated on request.
Removals
Other removal requests are considered individually. Grounds that ordinarily lead to removal include an entry naming a non-party, a proceeding that was discontinued and is shown to be so, a person who was a child at the time, or a genuine safety risk. A removed entry is withheld from every page and from search, and is not restored by later collections of the same list.
Entries that accurately reproduce a court's published list are not removed only because the person named would prefer they were not public. Open justice is a fundamental principle of New Zealand law; the register exists to preserve that record.