Page 3104 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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the kinds of cases it can hear. Two magistrates, at the same time, will be given dual commissions, being half-time judges in the district court. Presumably the district court will have a jurisdiction that sits somewhere between the yet to be expanded Magistrates Court jurisdiction and the existing jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, so higher level cases than the Magistrates Court but lower than the Supreme Court.
Mr Corbell has said that the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court will be reviewed in the process as well. Presumably then the threshold for the Supreme Court cases will also be raised, pushing matters down to the district court. So the workload of the Supreme Court will be reduced and the workload of the Magistrates Court will be increased, because of the two magistrates having a dual commission. So where will the pressure end up? It will end up again in the Magistrates Court and the district court. And for that we will have no new bodies to deal with it. (Second speaking period taken.) All of this work, which is going to be spread around in this magical way, will be done with minimal extra resources.
None of this, of course, takes account of the forum shopping and the appeals that will occur in our system. Mr Corbell has simply not addressed these issues and, of course, if he did it would certainly cloud the arguments in favour.
In setting all this up, Mr Corbell intends to appoint a temporary Supreme Court judge for nine months to clear the backlog of cases in that forum. He has not contemplated whether he will replace Mr Gray when he retires next year. So will the workload of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal be reduced? I doubt it. As Mr Archer said in his letter to the editor, he assumes his appellate practice, as a result of these changes, will develop significantly. So perhaps there will be money in it for the lawyers.
It would seem likely, therefore, that Jack Waterford’s prediction, made in his commentary piece, will come true:
The trouble is that a District Court, even without a physical presence or separate judiciary, will quickly become a thing of itself, with interests demanding to be taken into account. Magistrates are ambitious and eager for status, and would soon be preening themselves and demanding higher salaries and privileges. As yet unappointed beaks would start delivering judgements and toughening sentences so as to catch the appointing eye of an attorney. They would slow down the necessarily frantic pace of their work so as to seem deliberate.
And how does this contrast with the measured approach recommended by the Attorney-General’s own Supreme Court workshop? This working group, made up by a distinguished group of people and chaired by the deputy chief executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety, examined the matters of issue affecting the ability of the Supreme Court to deal with its caseload. It produced a major report this year and it made six recommendations, which I will paraphrase, but I do refer people to the Supreme Court working group, for fear that people might think I am paraphrasing them too liberally.
These recommendations include: to consider increasing the limits of the Magistrates Court for civil matters to review which criminal matters come before the Supreme Court exclusively; to establish additional jury room facilities in the Magistrates Court
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