Wellington, Nov 17 NZPA - Justice officials are seeking senior advisors to support an initial draft of new criminal laws.

A policy and legal group in the Justice Ministry has called for tenders from potential advisors for the "criminal procedure simplification" planned by its criminal law team over 11 months from January 11.

The group has released consultation papers on specific proposals for law reform over the past two years, and has tested changes to criminal processes in the Manukau and Tauranga District Courts.

This year it will release a further paper and a draft to show how all the proposed changes work as an integrated package.

That draft will outline the key law changes and provide a foundation for a new Criminal Procedure Bill -- to replace the Summary Proceedings Act 1957 -- and consolidate some criminal procedure in other legislation, such as the Crimes Act 1961.

The work has been done by a crime prevention and criminal justice unit which advises Justice Minister Simon Power on criminal law.

The ministry has been working on the simplification project with the Law Commission, which yesterday tabled a report to Parliament recommending court proceedings should be more open and rules governing the suppression of names should be tightened and more transparent.

That report, Suppressing Names and Evidence, said there needed to be greater emphasis on open justice and freedom of expression.

The simplification project started in October 2007, and has canvassed issues such as further constraints on availability of jury trials, a formal sentence indication scheme, trials in the absence of the defendant, and options for avoiding re-trials when judges have to discharge jurors.

It has proposed video so criminals could be sentenced while remaining in jail. Video equipment being installed in 52 prisons, police stations, courtrooms and legal offices is expected to cost $22 million.

New guidelines on disclosure and instructions are expected to create less need for cases to be adjourned, with some cases going directly from the list court to a defended hearing, without a status hearing, according to the project website.

Mr Power said earlier he needed to consider some of the traditional practices of the court system.

"Court waiting times are at an unacceptable level," he said.

The median wait time for district court trials is one year and for high court trials 16-1/2 months.

He was critical of repeated adjournments, unnecessary appearances, late guilty pleas, trials that start late, minor trials tried by jury, barriers to use of modern technologies and a complex and outdated legislative framework.

The proposed changes would cause fewer delays, fewer adjournments, shorter trials, and increased efficiency, Mr Power said.