DHB and defendant take report issues to High Court

Published date22 June 2022
The Waikato District Health Board, whose understaffed forensic mental health service (FMHS) is struggling to deliver the mental health assessment reports within the legal timeframe, has made a statement of claim under the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908 seeking that it is not answerable to the courts’ orders for the reports

Meanwhile, a Taranaki man is suing the Attorney-General under the Judicial Procedure Act 2016 and the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908 after Waikato’s FMHS refused to comply with a judge’s order, made in March this year, to provide the 20-year-old with a psychiatric report.

A follow-up order was made later that month by Judge Tony Greig to the FMHS to provide a report on the defendant but that was also ignored.

The man, who is represented by Taranaki lawyer Nathan Bourke, together with two Wellington-based lawyers, is arguing the Attorney-General is responsible for ensuring statutory requirements in the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2003 (the CPMIP Act) are complied with.

He is seeking a number of declarations, including that without consent for an extension reports must be completed within 14 days of the court’s direction, and that it is unlawful for a health assessor to refuse an order to provide a report on the basis the defendant has not been screened by a forensic court liaison nurse.

He is also asking that the Crown bear the costs of the private sector report he had to seek after the FMHS did not provide the court-ordered, publicly-funded report.

The two cases punctuate a growing tension between the Waikato FMHS and the courts, which stems from significant resourcing issues within the service and the impact that is having on its ability to meet judges’ orders for mental health assessments.

Waikato’s FMHS provides reports to the district and high courts in Waikato, Taranaki, Lakes, and Bay of Plenty. But following the departure of six of its forensic psychiatrists in the past two years, and a national shortage of those trained in the subspeciality, the FMHS is overstretched and reports are routinely delayed or refused.

The psychiatric reports inform the court on whether a person is mentally fit to stand trial or was insane at the time of the alleged offending and are ordered under section 38 of the CPMIP Act.

The act states that they have to be provided within 14 days, or 30 days with a court-granted extension. Defendants are almost always remanded into custody during the process.

The Waikato DHB has previously...

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