The Nelson Legal AID Scheme

In view of the arbitrary manner in which justice is apparently dispensed in the Magistrate's courts, and given that Maoris receive justice less often than pakehas, it became quite clear to us that we must initiate a legal aid programme since in order to obtain the best one can of British justice, representation by counsel is absolutely essential.

For a year it has been our aim to obtain legal representation for every Maori or Polynesian appearing before the Nelson Magistrate's Court on a criminal charge. We had two main objectives in view when we undertook the programme. Firstly, to help the defendant in his understanding of court procedure, to ensure that he was fairly treated by the police and by the court, to provide him with sympathetic company in the intimidating atmosphere of the court, and to do our best to ensure that he felt that he had had a 'fair go', within the limitations of the present inadequate system. Secondly, we wanted to see what effect representation by counsel could have on the result of the court hearing. Our lawyers were chosen because they were prepared to allow us to assure each alleged offender that he would not be charged at all for the services provided by his lawyer. In fact, more than 95% of these offenders have received legal aid under the Offenders Legal Aid Scheme.

In most cases we contacted defendants before their first court appearance and they were able to take advantage of the advice of counsel with regard to questioning and to plea. Nevertheless, a few defendants did not come to our notice until after their first court appearance at which they had entered a plea. In these cases our lawyers were limited to pleading in mitigation of penalty, although three such defendants changed earlier pleas of guilty to Not Guilty, on the advice of counsel. In one instance where a plea of Guilty and a conviction had already been entered before our contacting the defendant, an application for a rehearing of the case and a change of plea was granted on the ground of new evidence.

In order to assess the results of this programme we have completed a study which, we believe, has not previously been undertaken for a court in New Zealand. We have analysed approximately 14,000 individual files from the Nelson Magistrate's Court for 1972, the year during which our programme operated and, for comparison, 1970 and 1971, two 'normal' years. Initially we eliminated all files concerning traffic offences. The remaining files, which included police summons and police arrest cases, were then separated into Maori and non-Maori groups. Details of each charge, plea, representation by counsel, and details of the decision of the court and sentence were recorded for every defendant.