Decision selection criteria

A selection of the following District Court decisions are published on this site:

• Civil Jurisdiction
• Criminal Jurisdiction
• Youth Court
• Family Court.

We do NOT publish the following judgments:

• Decisions that are subject to statutory prohibitions OR court orders prohibiting publication.
• Decisions that have a time-limited suppression order (until the order is no longer effective).
• Memoranda.
• Administrative minutes.

Prohibitions on publication

Some published judgments may contain banners outlining time-limited suppression orders pending final disposition of trial, however those decisions will only have been published following determination that the orders are spent because the trial or retrial has occurred.

Some published judgments may contain banners noting that a statutory suppression order applies or a court order may be noted in the judgment. These decisions are only published after the names have been changed and and any identifying details of the protected person have been redacted.

Anonymisation

Content or names within judgments in this database may be suppressed because of a statutory provision, a suppression order of the court, or an order made in the course of delivering judgment.

Judgments in this database may have been anonymised — real names are replaced with pseudonyms and, where it is appropriate by editing and removing information that would allow the protected parties to be identified.

In Youth Court and some types of Family Court judgments real names are replaced with initials.

Identifying information or information within a judgment that has been removed is identified by [ ] for example, [address deleted].

For more information, see Statutory Prohibitions on Publication [PDF, 211 KB].

Important note before reporting/republishing Youth Court decisions

Any person, including news media¹, wishing to publish or report from Youth Court decisions published on this website are advised that – under s 438 (1) of the Oranga Tamariki 1989 – they will need the leave of the court which heard the proceedings to do so.

Application for leave can be made to:

• the presiding judge, via the registrar at the court where the case was dealt with, or
• the Strategic Communications Adviser to the Chief District Court Judge at ChiefJudges.Chambers@courts.govt.nz.

Note: This requirement does not apply to bona fide professional or technical publications that meet the definition in s 148(2).

Disclaimer

Changes in circumstances after a decision is published on the internet may affect the accuracy of information. No assurance is given as to the accuracy or completeness of any representation, statement, information or advice contained after the publication on the internet. The authenticated decision on the court file takes precedence.

Copyright

Under the Copyright Act 1994, s 27(g), NO copyright exists in respect of Judgments or decisions of any New Zealand Court or Tribunal.

All other content on this website is protected by Crown copyright.

Format

Judgments are available to download in PDF format. (You will need Acrobat Reader to view the PDF files. It can be downloaded from the Adobe website(external link).)

The Judgment page includes a brief summary of the judgment and a link to download or view the judgment.

Summaries provided do NOT form part of the judgment, and are included for information only.