Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1568 ..

Mr Humphries (continuing):

Question 3: It is recognised that the cost of Court transcript may have a significant impact on some litigants seeking access to the Court. It is for this reason that the fee charging regime was recently amended to provide that applicants can be given an audio cassette of proceedings at a cost of $30 and the Court has recently purchased high speed dubbing equipment, which will facilitate this service. Auscript also currently provides assistance to litigants by providing reading rooms for them to listen to sound recordings of proceedings and to read the transcript. Auscript does not charge for this service. Both facilities assist litigants to assess whether or not to proceed to an appeal.

Question 4: No. Enquires made of judges' associates reveal that in a recent case in the criminal jurisdiction of the Court a Judge requested the Director of Public Prosecutions to provide a self litigant with a copy of the transcript of the Magistrates Court proceedings. The appellant had only ordered an extract and was not possession of a full transcript, which would not be the normal case.

Question 5: Neither the Magistrates Court or the Supreme Court receive transcripts free of charge from Auscript. The Supreme Court pays Auscript for transcript at a rate of $6.50 per page and last year paid $158,893 for transcript required by the Court itself. Auscript records proceedings for the Supreme Court as well as offering a transcription service and the lower page rate is part of an overall package. Last financial year the ACT Magistrates Court paid Auscript $43,100 over and above what it collected from parties and other applicants for transcripts. The Court also pays further surcharges for disks and cassettes and Court staff actually record the proceedings. None of these costs are passed on to applicants. The Court also provides transcripts of committal proceedings free of charge to parties committed to the Supreme Court for trial, which is in accordance with the Magistrates Court Act. A significant number of these defendants would be legally aided.

The practices surrounding the supply and payment of transcripts for ACT Court's is similar to practices adopted in other jurisdictions. In NSW, transcripts for committal proceedings are supplied free of charge to defendants, whereas a fee of $6.50 per page is charged to applicants for transcripts for sentence hearings and appeals where the proceedings are under 3 months old. Where the proceedings are more than 3 months old, a fee of $7.50 per page is charged to both defendants and appellants.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .