Page 2316 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 June 2013
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government has recently implemented a raft of initiatives to address the delays in the Supreme Court. It is sensible to at least give these measures some time to work. I will expand on these measures in a moment.
First, though, I wish to make the point that it does not really advance the case for Mr Seselja to bring on the same debate and repeat the same arguments as he did just a few weeks ago. The Supreme Court delays have been the subject of a lot of media attention recently, and Mr Seselja’s bill and this debate appear to be a spotlight for Mr Seselja to air the same arguments, hopefully get some media and, I suppose, give the impression of going out fighting. Since the debate in March where we all stated our positions I have not been approached by the Liberal Party for any discussions on this issue and nor have they engaged me with any new arguments or alternatives. It does seem a little artificial. As I said, this is especially so given that the Assembly in March resolved to report back on the issue in March next year.
I will restate my position, which remains the same as it did in March. I have said clearly that I am not prepared to support a call for the immediate appointment of a fifth judge. That does not mean I will not support it in the future. I agree with Minister Corbell’s proposal to assess the progress of the court over the year and to re-examine the issue in March next year. The reason is that there are substantial changes occurring in the Supreme Court at the moment. They are a result of several initiatives introduced over the last year or so. I think the government has made a genuine attempt to alleviate the problem. We need to acknowledge this and give the changes time to take effect. I remain very hopeful that these initiatives will help alleviate the problems with delays. I would be interested to know if the Canberra Liberals have already decided that these initiatives will fail. It is convenient to ignore all these initiatives and pretend a fifth judge is the one and only solution.
Some of the initiatives that are currently underway are worth reflecting on. There is now an increased Magistrates Court civil and criminal jurisdiction. This should assist to shift cases away from the Supreme Court into the Magistrates Court. I think this is an important initiative, because there are some matters that go to the Supreme Court which do not warrant going to the highest court in the territory. It is quite appropriate that they are dealt with in the Magistrates Court, and anecdotally I am told by those I know in the profession that we are now beginning to see an increase in matters in the Magistrates Court away from the Supreme Court. So certainly that initiative appears to be having an effect, and it may end up being that it is the Magistrates Court that needs additional capacity if these sorts of measures play out.
That applies also to reforms to the Bail Act. Those went through in the last Assembly, and they also had the effect of limiting the number of bail matters going to the Supreme Court. Again, a bail matter should not be in the Supreme Court unless there is some new and significant issue of law. The reforms to that have seen more matters going back to the Magistrates Court. That, again, may raise the issue of capacity in the Magistrates Court, but that will be a matter for future discussion as well.
We have seen reforms for judge-alone trials. There is now a single registry and a listing review system. We also have the new Supreme Court docket case management system. As I said during the last debate, this year we will also see a change in
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