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Grieving families call for Government to increase number of Coroners

Author
Amber Allott, Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 1 Oct 2020, 12:30PM
(Photo / File)

Grieving families call for Government to increase number of Coroners

Author
Amber Allott, Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 1 Oct 2020, 12:30PM

A suicide prevention advocacy group says we need an urgent review of the Coroner's Act.

Under the Act - the number of working Coroners is capped at 20.

Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust chair Corinda Taylor lost her son Ross in 2013.

His Coronial hearing date has finally been set for later this year.

Taylor says grieving families need more financial support for Coronial inquests - so they can afford lawyers and expert witnesses.

But she says 20 coroners is clearly not enough to cope with the workload.

Taylor says there needs to be an urgent review of the Act - because grieving family members are also at high risk of committing suicide themselves.

It's been almost three years to the day since Christchurch dad Geoff Booth's son Liam died - and he's still waiting for a hearing date.

He says New Zealand's skyrocketing suicide numbers need to be considered when looking at the number of coroners we have.

Booth says 14 families will be planning funerals this week - and next week it'll be 14 more.

He says there's things he still needs to know - like where the failings were in the system, and whether anything could be learn from Liam's death that could help others.

Neither Labour nor National is proposing any review of the Coroners Act in their justice policies this election.

Justice Minister Andrew Little says they've already funded eight new relief coroners out of last year's Budget to address the backlog.He says he doesn't expect a review of the Act to be part of Labour's policy.

But Little says one of the biggest barriers for families in the Coronial system is money - and this will likely be part of any future legal aid review.

National's justice spokesman Simon Bridges says his top priority as Minister would be timely access to justice.

He says National would look for any practical means it could to speed processes up across judicial bodies - including the Coroners court.

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