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Locate a Justice of the Peace

All Justices of the Peace perform ministerial duties, but only some carry out judicial duties as well. A Justice of the Peace wishing to perform judicial duties must initially complete a Certificate in Judicial Studies course provided by the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (TOPNZ) and thereafter attend training sessions arranged by his or her local JP association.

Ministerial Duties:

Ministerial duties comprise principally of:

• Witnessing signatures
• Certifying documents
• The witnessing of land transfer and other documents
• The taking of declarations, affidavits or affirmations
• The receiving of informations and complaints and the issue of summonses
• The issue of search warrants
• The issue of summonses to witnesses

The two classifications of judicial and ministerial duties seem to overlap, since certain powers conferred upon Justices of the Peace are discretionary. In realty, however, the last three ministerial duties listed above are not usually performed by Justices of the Peace who have not successfully completed the TOPNZ Judicial Studies course. This is because, when attending to those three duties, Justices must be satisfied that the information they are acting upon is accurate and in accordance with the law.

Only by having successfully completed the Judicial Studies course does a Justice have the requisite skill and knowledge to handle those duties.

All the duties of a Justice are important and Justices must be thoroughly familiar with the carrying out of those duties. Although not every Justice becomes involved in judicial duties, every Justice must carry out Ministerial duties. On-going training and support are offered for both ministerial and judicial duties.

Judicial Duties:

Judicial duties involve those functions carried out in the District Court by suitable trained judicial Justices:

• Jurisdiction determined by statute, including minor offences and some traffic cases
• Issue of remands and bail
• Hearing of undefended cases
• Presiding over defended trials
• Preliminary hearing of indictable offences

During 2002 the 398 Justices who served in the Courts spent over 23,800 hours in Court attending to 10,620 preliminary hearings, 24,500 traffic offences, 1,140 defended cases and 16,650 remands and bails.