Page 1110 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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The operation of an efficient and effective court system is crucial to the administration of justice and delays are a significant obstacle to achieving these goals.
There is no legal right under common law or legislation to have court proceedings conducted within a reasonable amount of time in any Australian jurisdiction. However, the problems caused by delays and the importance of reducing delays have long been recognised. The only response the Attorney-General has had to all of these problems and complaints is a wait-and-see over the introduction of a docket system. We believe it is well beyond time for a wait-and-see and it is time an extra judge was appointed.
The government and others will no doubt say that this is not the entire solution and it will not fix all the problems, and that is correct; a fifth judge will not fix all of the problems in our court system. But it is an important step in dealing with some of these issues. There has been criticism of certain judges. I am not going to get into going after particular judges here, but we know there are concerns about the length of time some judges have taken. We believe in judicial appointments, and the Canberra Liberals have put forward solutions when it comes to judicial appointments. In the end, if the judicial appointments were wrong, it is this government that needs to take the blame; it is this government that did not do the proper consultation.
In the past I have put forward the Courts (Judicial Appointments) Amendment Bill, which would have provided a forum through an Assembly committee—like we do with other statutory appointments—where we could hear from the Law Society, where we could hear from other people affected by judges and have their consideration of these appointments. We believe that would lead to better appointments. So better appointments are part of it, and we put forward solutions in relation to that.
There is no doubt we agree with the Law Society. We believe their claim is not unreasonable. We believe when you look at the statistics from around the country that we simply do not have enough judicial officers to do the job. An extra judge is needed. It will not solve all of the problems. We should be looking at how we appoint judges; we should be looking at other areas around the administration of justice, but this government need to take the blame. They have been in government for 11 years. They have made a number of these appointments. In some cases, the appointments have been done with minimal consultation, if any, with relevant affected parties. All these factors together have led to unacceptable delays.
In closing, let us not forget that these are not esoteric arguments; these are real issues for real people—be it someone accused who deserves to have their case properly and promptly heard, be it someone falsely accused who may serve time on remand when they are not guilty or be it victims of crime who want to see these cases resolved and must go through the heartache, through testimony and other processes. Delays add to the pain of victims of crime. They stretch out that pain because there is no resolution in some cases for many years. There are real costs to business of civil cases that are delayed for years and years. There is a very strong case for an extra judge. This government have not got it done. We believe the time is now, and I commend my motion to the Assembly.
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