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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 09 Hansard (Tuesday, 17 August 2004) . . Page.. 3792 ..

see there will be a judge on the committee, a couple of magistrates, representatives of the bar, the DPP, and various people—the normal players in the court process.

Mrs Dunne: The usual suspects.

MR STEFANIAK: The usual suspects you would expect to have there in procedures between the Supreme Court and the Magistrates Court. Of course, the Magistrates Court is governed by the Magistrates Court (Civil Jurisdiction) Act 1982, and the Supreme Court basically makes its own rules and has done so since it was established in about 1933. So this is good legislation. I will watch with interest to see how the process develops. Certainly its aims are laudatory. It should ensure that costs are reduced by enabling lawyers to find the relative rules a lot more quickly, reduce the potential for confusion and speed up the process too.

That is terribly important. The old adage that justice delayed is justice denied is very true. It will reduce the costs that litigants will have to pay as a result of confusion. It will reduce some of the costs involved in running the courts, and also facilitate the transfer of proceedings from one court to another. All of those aims are very laudatory. I look forward to seeing how the process operates as the committee gets going, and we end up with one set of rules.

MS DUNDAS (9.51):The ACT Democrats are happy to support both the Court Procedures Bill and the Court Procedures (Consequential Amendments) Bill. They set up a framework for the development of a single set of court procedures for the ACT’s two major court systems, the Supreme Court system and the Magistrates Court system. These two systems have developed independently and from different sources. In particular, the rules of the Magistrates Court have been placed in legislation, whereas the Supreme Court has been able to determine its own rules for many decades.

There has also been a concern that the Supreme Court has developed its rules ad hoc, whereas the Magistrates Court rules developed more comprehensively in the most recent review in the 1970s. This provides further inconsistency in the framing of the two systems. It has meant that the two systems have substantially different rules in place that relate to the commencement of proceedings, waiting for various actions or the presumptions that arise from submitting evidence. This means that lawyers need to be doubled up on learning on the procedures of the courts, and there can sometimes be confusion. It also has some implications for cases that are transferred between the courts.

While the object of these bills is relatively simple, the implementation of the concept is technically complicated, and involves substantial legislative changes, including relocation of a number of provisions and the repeal of many archaic pieces of legislation. The bill is also a further example of the simplification and modernisation that is happening to the ACT statute book to assist public access and understanding of ACT laws. So, these bills are an important piece of work and I commend the government for undertaking this project. It is not a hot political issue, but it is an important piece of work that will hopefully lead to better outcomes in our judicial system and in the efficient and fair administration of justice.

MS TUCKER (9.53): The Greens will be supporting this bill and its consequential bill. It essentially sets up an ongoing mechanism for the rules of the Magistrates Court along

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