Page 4123 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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Who can complain about that - apart, of course, from the administrators? The next was:
to allow merits review, associated questions of law, and enforcement to be brought together in one forum -
and that is certainly a restricting clause. The final one was:
generally to provide an efficient and effective resolution of disputes which require recourse to litigation.
So I think that, whilst the Attorney-General is interested in setting up a genuine review of the court system - and I think there is a positive aspect in that - there is certainly a major gap in what needs to be done in this area. That gap is probably emphasised by the further restriction that was put on Mr Curtis, and that is found in these words:
The Attorney-General has specifically directed the development of a unified court system as a model for reform.
So Mr Collaery has the idea that he wants a unified court system, which may be very good; it may be very bad - I am not an expert - but there is no room for manoeuvre on it. There is no room for discussion. The work that has been done in this rather extensive review has been done within that restriction, and that process of consultation within that restriction seems to me to lead to a specific result in the same way that the school closures lack of consultation process led to a specific result - and there is a problem.
I do not want you to mistake me and say that I think that this process has been terrible. What I am saying is that there is a role for this process, but that is not enough. It is a restricted process and what we need is a much more open process whereby we have the opportunity, indeed the responsibility - which the Attorney-General has taken on - to review our courts and to look at what might be the best way to deal with those courts. Indeed, I could go on further in that way, but I think it would tend to be repetitive.
What I really would like to emphasise is that the most important thing for ordinary people is not how the lawyers are going to be able to deal with the court but how ordinary people can get in and use the court system with the least possible flak and the least possible cost, and I do not believe that this review in any way starts to address those issues. That is no reflection on Mr Curtis. Rather it is a reflection on the Attorney-General, who has not given him the opportunity to do that because he has restricted Mr Curtis in the specific objectives and has not allowed him to operate beyond those objectives.
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