Only a judge can stop a plainly abusive case before it is served
The Supreme Court ruled that a High Court official could not reject court documents just because the court's power to hear the case was uncertain.
In Wolfe v Governor-General of New Zealand [2026] NZSC 109, released on 17 August 2026, the court dismissed an application for permission to appeal but found that two High Court decisions had wrongly refused to accept the applicants’ documents.
The applicants, who represented themselves, had tried to challenge a refusal to grant a special visa under s. 61 of the Immigration Act 2009. A High Court registrar, a court official who processes filings, declined to accept their appeal documents, on the basis that no appeal was available against such a decision. A High Court judge upheld that refusal.
The court found the registrar was required to accept the documents. Under the High Court Rules, it said, a registrar must accept a proceeding that meets the formal filing requirements even where the court’s power to hear the case was in doubt. A registrar could refer a case to a judge only where it was, on its face, plainly an abuse of the court's process, a power the court said must be used sparingly and only in the clearest cases. The applicants' proceedings did not meet that description.
No rule let a registrar refuse a filing because the court might lack power to hear the matter, the court held. Unlike the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, whose rules let registrars reject documents for lack of power, the High Court was where cases began and where the right of access to the court was strongest. Access to the court was a fundamental right and part of the rule of law, the court said, though not unlimited.
Since the decisions under challenge, the court noted, the relevant rules had been replaced by new provisions in the Senior Courts Act 2016 that extended to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. One provision automatically barred a litigant from starting or continuing civil cases without the High Court's permission once that court had struck out their cases more than once within two years.
The court accepted that it had power to consider the application but refused permission to appeal, finding that the case did not cross the required threshold and that the applicants needed no appeal. They remained free to file a fresh challenge to the visa decision, which should be dealt with on its merits.
Given the errors that had denied the applicants access, the court awarded them $1,000 in costs.
