Page 1484 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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The report gives instances where some steps have been taken to improve matters in the Territory, and it states that some steps have been taken towards case management. But in neither court - that is, neither the Supreme Court nor the Magistrates Court - has there been a comprehensive and systematic attempt to actually do this. We have, of course, had some quite significant and substantial improvements in recent years. I was delighted to see the appointment of a Master of the Supreme Court in 1989 which, of course, relieved judges of some important administrative and lower level duties.
Some important additional funding for the Magistrates Court was also provided in the 1989-90 Commonwealth Budget - also a matter of some delight to me - which allowed the appointment of two additional full-time magistrates. But, overall, the position and the picture are not particularly impressive. Mr Curtis himself said:
These deficiencies are a reflection of the fact that Commonwealth priorities were generally directed elsewhere.
And, of course, the infrastructure provided elsewhere in the Territory for particular activities and facilities stands in strong and sharp contrast to what is provided in the way of court services in the ACT. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we need to have an affordable court system, but that has to be addressed at the same time as we look at the other problems facing the system, particularly the fact that the structures presently are unwieldy; that they create unnecessary barriers; that the present structure lacks a proper database for planning, which is a serious matter; and that it is costing us money because of built-in inefficiencies.
One last matter in the report I would like to refer to is professional costs. To anybody who has worked in the system, professional costs are very important, and there are a number of interesting comments made in the section on professional costs in the report. At one point, in paragraph 17.13, Mr Curtis even goes so far as to suggest that there is a primary question as to whether there should be a continuation of the scale of costs. He goes on to suggest that it might be:
... too radical a step to take at this stage to abandon scales of costs as a means of regulating fair charges for the conduct of professional work in litigation ...
Obviously that is a very important question and I would support his concern and caution there. We cannot allow courts to become places where people can effectively lose the shirts off their back because there are not sufficient controls on the amounts that they might be charged. But obviously there is a problem with the inflexibility of the
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