Page 6049 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
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undertaken in the ACT Supreme Court would occur in the intermediate district or county court in jurisdictions such as New South Wales and Victoria.
In response to the gap between the judicial resources and case load in the Supreme Court, the paper proposed the establishment of an intermediate criminal jurisdiction in the ACT in the form of a district court jurisdiction. The jurisdiction was to have been presided over by judicial officers holding dual commissions and supported by the existing registry and administrative resources of the ACT courts, and the new court would have sat in the existing court buildings.
If the ACT established a district court, the streamlined procedures of the court would be better suited to many of the less serious criminal and civil matters currently heard in the ACT Supreme Court.
The government believes that if we continue to have the system where a very large range of matters end up being heard in the Supreme Court, the sorts of matters that are not heard in most other supreme courts around the country, then we are going to continue to face problems with delays in our Supreme Court. Regrettably, the other parties in the Assembly have indicated that there should be incremental reform rather than a more substantive structural reform at this stage. Accordingly, the government is going to have to proceed with options which, while they will assist, are not going to be as effective as structural reform.
The government has moved to implement some of these options immediately. The government has appointed three highly experienced retired judges as acting judges for a cumulative period of nine months to assist with the backlog in the Supreme Court in the short term. The government has also converted underutilised hearing rooms in the Magistrates Court building into a jury courtroom and jury retirement room to enable more jury trials to proceed.
The government is introducing legislative reform to reduce the number of matters coming before the Supreme Court. In November I introduced the Bail Amendment Bill 2010. The government’s proposed reforms to the Bail Act 1992 will ensure that the issue of bail is explored fully in the Magistrates Court while still ensuring that appropriate access to the Supreme Court is retained. This should reduce the number of bail hearings in the Supreme Court.
The bill has the effect that offences under ACT law with a maximum penalty of five years or less will be dealt with in the summary jurisdiction of the Magistrates Court. To that end, the definition of ACT indictable offences will be amended to apply only to those offences with a maximum penalty greater than five years.
The Magistrates Court already has jurisdiction to deal summarily with all indictable offences with a maximum penalty of 10Â years, and some with much higher maximum penalties where the parties so elect. If the Assembly agrees, in relation to charges with an offence greater than two years but less than the revised definition of an indictable offence, a defendant will no longer be able to elect to have the matter proceed to the Supreme Court for hearing. Instead, as is the case now where a defendant elects to have these matters proceed summarily in the Magistrates Court, all these matters will be dealt with summarily in the Magistrates Court. As with other summary matters, an appeal will lie to the Supreme Court.
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