Page 1600 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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arbitration claims, both statutory and at common law, relating to workers compensation and workplace injury.
The new industrial court will be able to hear all industrial civil claims up to $250,000 currently coming before the Magistrates Court and also workers compensation matters presently within the jurisdiction of that court. To encourage uniformity and build up a repository of specialisation, knowledge and experience in work health and safety matters, the new court will be given jurisdiction to hear and decide industrial civil compensation claims over $250,000, which can presently only be dealt with by the Supreme Court.
It is desirable that the common law workers compensation litigation be part of the same jurisdiction as the mechanism to manage disputes, penalties and fines. This will facilitate the development of expertise by the court to promote consistency in decision making and the application of penalties by the court, increasing confidence in the process across all in these industries.
While there are obvious benefits from centralising expertise in a single industrial court, it is likely that some matters heard in the industrial court at first instance might be appealed to the Supreme Court. To avoid any relative advantage of hearing extra matters in the industrial court being overshadowed by an increase in party costs and delay arising from appeals to the Supreme Court, the industrial court will have the power to be able to refer matters to the Supreme Court in certain circumstances—that is, where the parties jointly apply to have a matter removed to the Supreme Court, where one party applies to have a matter removed and the court considers it appropriate, and on the court’s own initiative.
The criminal jurisdiction of the industrial court will remain the same as that of the Magistrates Court for criminal prosecutions. For example, the new industrial court will have jurisdiction to hear and decide any industrial or work safety offence against a person in relation to a summary or indictable offence, if the person was an adult at the time of the alleged offence. However, serious matters, such as industrial murder or manslaughter, would remain in the Supreme Court as it has sole jurisdiction to hear criminal matters involving harm to a person where the maximum penalty is greater than 10 years imprisonment.
The industrial court will also have jurisdiction to hear and decide a proceeding in relation to bail for an adult charged with an industrial or work safety offence and a proceeding in relation to a breach of a sentence imposed by the Magistrates Court for an industrial or work safety offence. Flexibility is built into the draft legislation to allow for jurisdiction to be expressly conferred on the industrial court by any other act of the Assembly.
The Chief Magistrate will be responsible for the allocation of the business of the industrial court and would be responsible for declaring an existing magistrate to be the industrial magistrate for a specified period, not exceeding two years. The Chief Magistrate will also have flexibility to assign a magistrate to act as industrial court magistrate if there is no industrial court magistrate or the industrial court magistrate is absent from duty or from the ACT or is unable to exercise their functions.
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