Page 4434 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 1993
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Magistrates Court Act. Amendment of the Magistrates Court Act in this way is part of a larger legislative exercise to introduce, as far as is appropriate, substantially similar fees and charges provisions into the courts and Administrative Appeals Tribunal legislation.
The Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) 1993 will amend the Magistrates Court Act 1930 in several respects. Presently, section 257 of the Magistrates Court Act, section 307B of the Magistrates Court (Civil Jurisdiction) Act and section 50A of the Small Claims Act provide that the Minister may determine fees for the purposes of those Acts. The package of Bills will have the effect of replacing this regime with a new section, section 248A, located in the Magistrates Court Act, which will allow the Minister to determine fees and charges in respect of the Magistrates Court and the Small Claims Court. Under the Small Claims Act, the Magistrates Court, when exercising jurisdiction under that Act, is known as the Small Claims Court. There might be a quiz on this later.
The power to determine fees and charges will not be confined to determining fees and charges strictly for the purposes of the various pieces of legislation or incidental to those purposes but will be broad enough to allow for the determination of fees and charges for services or facilities those courts provide which, perhaps, are not directly contemplated by the legislation. Fees and charges that might be determined might be common to both courts, but it will not be necessary that they be so. The power will be broad enough to allow for variation in similar types of fees between courts and, indeed, for some fees and charges to be applied in one court but not in the other where that is appropriate. The effect of the scheme will be that only one determination of fees and charges will need to be made in future where presently there are three. A high degree of flexibility will be provided for, in that a determination may provide for exemptions from payment of filing fees and fees for service and execution of process, in whole or in part, and for the remission, refund or deferral of liability for payment of fees and charges by the registrar. A determination will, of course, be a disallowable instrument and will come before this Assembly.
Section 248B, to be inserted by the Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) of 1993, will provide the obligation to pay fees or charges determined under section 248A and, except where a fee cannot be calculated until after the function is performed or facility or service provided, to pay them in advance in accordance with the determination. The registrar or the courts will be under no obligation to perform a function or provide a facility or service if a fee or charge payable in advance is not paid when due. Section 248C will provide that fees or charges may be remitted, refunded or liability for payment deferred in accordance with the determination. Liability then for the payment of fees and charges will also be centralised in the Magistrates Court Act, as will the grounds for remission or refund of, or exemption from, payment of fees and charges.
While the determination may provide for some exemptions, section 248C will also deal with exemptions from payments of fees and charges and for their waiver by the registrar in certain circumstances. At the moment, exemptions are not common across all the legislation, but the Magistrates Court (Amendment) Bill (No. 3) will apply them to proceedings generally rather than to proceedings under particular legislation and locate the existing exemptions, other than those that may be provided for by a determination, in the Magistrates Court Act.
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