Plaintiff’s negligence claim against justice ministry’s chief legal counsel not accepted
New Zealand’s High Court has upheld a registrar’s refusal to accept the filing of the plaintiff’s 13 November 2025 statement of claim asserting negligence against the defendant, who was chief legal counsel to the Ministry of Justice.
In a 2023 proceeding, the plaintiff in Slavich v Orr [2026] NZHC 750, sought to file a criminal charge of perverting the course of justice against the defendant. The issue there was whether evidence of intent was necessary to support that charge.
On 3 November 2025. McQueen J of the High Court refused to recall her 2023 decision to strike out the plaintiff’s judicial review proceeding.
In his proposed claim before the Wellington High Court, the plaintiff alleged a continuing delay in reassessing and overturning his conviction. He requested $500,000 in damages for emotional and financial harm.
On 21 November 2025, the registrar declined to accept the statement of claim for filing. She found that the plaintiff raised substantially the same issues addressed in the prior proceeding, amounting to impermissible relitigation under the res judicata principle.
On 24 November 2025, the plaintiff applied for a review of the registrar’s decision under r 2.11 of the High Court Rules 2016.
The plaintiff alleged that the registrar wrongly characterised the issues as substantially the same because negligence, asserted in the recent statement of claim, was a legal concept distinct from the issues raised in the 2023 proceeding.
The plaintiff alleged that previously unavailable new evidence could justify relitigating already determined issues.
The High Court of New Zealand declined the application for a review.
The court ruled that the registrar – who had the power to reject the filing of the plaintiff’s proceedings that plainly abused the process and went against the court’s direction – made no mistake in denying the documents for filing based on res judicata.
The court held that the plaintiff’s most recent attempt to relitigate his convictions from nearly two decades prior continued to abuse the courts’ process.
The court determined that the statement of claim, framed as negligence, squarely sought to relitigate an issue that previous court rulings had already determined about the evidence a witness provided at the plaintiff’s 2006 trial.
The court concluded that the plaintiff relied on proposed new evidence on which he had previously relied to assert that McQueen J wrongly struck out his statement of claim and should recall the strike-out decision.
