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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3478 ..

Mr Speaker,

One of the more significant issues confronting the reform of our legal system in the ACT is the Rules of Court. One of the references before the Community Law Reform Committee is the reform of the Rules of Court to make the administration of justice more efficient.

It is not often realised by the people who use the justice system that there are considerable differences which exist between the Rules in the Magistrates Court and the Supreme Court.

For example, as the report cites, a notice to admit facts in the Magistrates Court requires a response within 21 days, with a failure to respond being deemed an admission. The ACT Supreme Court, meanwhile, requires a response to a notice to admit facts within 14 days, but failure to respond does not indicate an admission.

Why, as the report asks, do we call a document requiring a witness to attend court in the Magistrates Court a summons, while in the Supreme Court, it is called a subpoena?

It is these differences which, although minor, can enable practitioners to manipulate proceedings by filing in one jurisdiction, using the rules to their benefit in that jurisdiction and then transferring to another jurisdiction. That sort of game is not at all in the interests of the administration of justice.

Mr Speaker, this report advocates a much higher degree of commonality between rules in each court. In doing so, the CLRC has identified an issue which is more appropriately brought to the Assembly's attention at this early stage.

The Magistrates Court's rules are essentially set by the legislature. Every time a rule is proposed to be changed, the Government of the day brings forward an amendment to the Magistrates Court (Civil Jurisdiction) Act 1982 and the Assembly considers and debates the proposed change.

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, predominantly makes its own Rules. A Rules Committee, consisting of the Judges, makes statutory Rules of Court to aid proceedings. These Rules have the force of subordinate legislation and are disallowable by the Assembly, even though that provision is rarely, if ever, used.

This preliminary report makes the sensible suggestion that common rules of court could be formulated by a single rules committee. This committee could

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