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The rollout of Phase 1 of Te Au Reka (Family Court jurisdiction) is planned to begin in the Christchurch and Ashburton District Courts, as well as parts of the national services teams on 23 November 2026.
This will introduce the new digital case management system for registry and judicial functions only.
The new courts portal will subsequently go live in March 2027 for the Family Court in Christchurch and Ashburton together with the remainder of the South Island.
The rollout of the courts portal and supporting digital systems will then continue for the Lower North Island and Central regions in April and Northern region in May 2027.
From 23 November, registry staff in Christchurch and Ashburton will enter all new Family Court cases into the system and judicial officers will only use the new digital decision making system for all new Family Court cases. Existing cases will continue to be managed in the Case Management System.
When the courts portal is live, it will be mandatory for lawyers in those regions to use the system for all new cases in centres where it is live. It will be available to court participants including self-representing litigants and third-party organisations, but not mandatory. To access the portal and case information, courts portal users will need to be verified with RealMe which is the secure, government-operated authentication and identity verification service.
Starting with the registry and judicial case management functions will allow for adequate testing, readiness for frontline staff and judiciary, and a carefully controlled rollout. This is critical to ensuring that people are well supported, and that the new digital system is stable, and fit for purpose before operating at scale.
However, as with any large and complex transformation that involves many moving parts, there can be things identified through testing the solution that are unexpected. Some things will be able to be accommodated but should a large critical issue be identified, that can’t be resolved by November, we would move to all functionality (registry, judiciary and portal) being rolled out from March 2027.
The portal will be accessed via a web browser and can be used on any device people already use in their day to day work. Guidance and learning on how to use the portal will be available on our website and through webinars for the profession ahead of the portal’s March launch. Phase 2 will include rolling out the digital case management system and courts portal across the District and High Courts Criminal and Civil jurisdictions and is planned for the latter part of 2027. Learning from Phase 1 will directly inform the approach those later rollouts.
In March 2023, the Chief Justice launched the Digital Strategy for the Courts and Tribunals of Aotearoa New Zealand.(external link) The Digital Strategy sets out the judiciary’s objectives and guiding principles for use of technology in courts. Te Au Reka was identified as one of the four priority initiatives for the judiciary, to ‘address the most acute justice infrastructure needs’ of New Zealand’s courts and tribunals.