Page 1111 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (12.15): I can assure the Assembly today that the government takes the issue of delay in the Supreme Court very seriously and continues to work with the court on this issue. I am also aware, of course, of calls for a fifth resident judge to be appointed to address the concerns relating to backlog in the court.
The government does not agree that the appointment of a fifth judge is the answer. The appointment of a fifth judge would involve significant ongoing expense to the ACT community, and the fact is that there are other factors that need to be addressed to ensure that we do not see delay in our Supreme Court.
Mr Seselja has referred to the High Court’s judgement in the case of Aon Risk Services Australia Ltd v Australian National University. I will read from this judgement again, because it highlights, in the view of the High Court, how litigation should not be conducted or dealt with. The court said:
The proceedings reveal a strange alliance. A party which has a duty to assist the court in achieving certain objectives fails to do so. A court which has a duty to achieve those objectives does not achieve them. The torpid languor of one hand washes the drowsy procrastination of the other. Are these phenomena indications of something chronic in the modern state of litigation? Or are they merely acute and atypical breakdowns in an otherwise functional system? Are they signs of a trend, or do they reveal only an anomaly? One hopes for one set of answers. One fears that, in reality, there must be another.
This observation from the court is not an observation on lack of resources or an observation on a failure to adequately manage a case; it reflects on case management practices, not on a lack of resources. Since that decision by the High Court and that scathing critique, the government has implemented a range of short and long-term measures appropriate to securing improved access to justice and to reduce delay.
Mr Seselja in his motion refers to the making of a complaint by the ACT Bar Association in regard to one of the justices of the court. I received that complaint under the Judicial Commissions Act in December last year. The complaint related to delay in delivering reserved judgements. After considering the complaint, I declined to act on it. The delay in the delivery of the judgements by that judge is egregious. It is not, however, clear that there are any continuing issues that warrant the removal of the judge from office.
The Chief Justice has given the judicial officer time out of court in order to finalise all reserved judgements. While court management is the responsibility of the Chief Justice and I cannot, of course, interfere in private litigation, the government continues to progress a series of initiatives with our courts to help with the issue of delay.
In relation to the workload of the court, Mr Seselja refers in his press release to the latest report on government services, showing that the ACT has the lowest number of
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