Page 4120 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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The review goes on in its discussion of the ACT court system to make a number of perhaps controversial recommendations as to how best the dispensing of justice in the ACT can be done. We are fairly fortunate in the ACT in that the time it takes to get certain matters heard, especially in the Supreme Court, is less than it is in New South Wales, for example. The situation has improved, certainly in the criminal jurisdiction in recent years, in that about five years ago it would often take nine months or so to have a matter come to trial in the Supreme Court if the defendant was on bail - considerably less than that, of course, if the defendant was in custody; those matters had priority.
I am pleased to see that, at least in that court - and I think perhaps the advent of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had a lot to do with this - the structure and the hearing of Supreme Court criminal matters has speeded up considerably. I think we are now seeing trials occurring with less than six months delay where persons are out on bail, and that is certainly a very commendable step for all involved.
But there are still big delays in the Magistrates Court, and I think the appointment of two new magistrates and some special magistrates in recent times has alleviated those delays. Certainly in my days as a practitioner, I wondered why some of those delays occurred because it was rather rare, in years gone by, to see any Magistrates Court sitting after 2.00 pm each day. In recent times I am pleased to see court time utilised better, and those courts do tend, as a rule now, to sit well and truly after 2.00 pm, and quite often go past the normal 4 o'clock rising time for the Magistrates Court.
I think that is indicative, too, of having a greater workload. There are more magistrates now, but they are sitting for the full time. There are some delays for hearings in the Magistrates Court, which I think really do need to be looked at, and I think the paper also goes into the question of delays as well. For example, for a hearing matter in a Magistrates Court - after you get an adjournment for a hearing - it is not uncommon to wait anything up to about nine months for the matter to be heard. And then, if the matter does not conclude, quite often you might be waiting another six months before your matter is heard again.
This is not uncommon. I have certainly been involved in many matters in the Magistrates Court which were not completed for some two years. I remember one case in point, involving alleged indecent assault on about six little girls, which went on for about 2 years by way of committal in the Magistrates Court, and we finished the three trials that evolved out of that within a year in the Supreme Court. There were probably a number of factors in relation to that particular matter which was somewhat
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