Page 2577 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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Another issue that is of significance, particularly within the legal fraternity, is that of a fifth Supreme Court judge. Once again, we see procrastination from the government, in particular the Attorney-General. There seems to be pretty much a unanimous call for a fifth judge—from the legal profession, the judiciary, the DPP, the public and especially those in our community who are embroiled in the backlog of matters that in some cases extend for years. As we often hear from those opposite, justice delayed is justice denied.
The estimates committee has recommended the government:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government review again the question of whether to appoint a fifth Supreme Court judge.
The government has agreed to do so in its response, but when you read the small print it does appear to be another fob off. The government says:
The ACT Government keeps this matter under regular review. The ACT Government continues to work with the Chief Justice on the question of appropriate Supreme Court resourcing, including through development of a resourcing model.
That is Sir Humphrey at his best. Rather than provide a straight answer, what we have got is, “We will consider it. We will always consider it,” but nothing happens. It is a bit like the single conservation agency that we discussed yesterday. The government continues to consider it even though it is in the parliamentary agreement. It is clear that a fifth Supreme Court judge is needed. I again call on this government to appoint one now.
The next area I want to turn to is the issue of resourcing of the DPP. This has been ongoing for a while now. I recall the DPP appearing before the estimates committee. If it was not last year, it was the year before. Perhaps he appeared before an annual reports hearing, but it was in the last 12 or 18 months. He is saying that they struggle on many days to find anyone to get to the court. They have struggled to meet the demands placed on it to bring criminals to justice.
The staff are stretched beyond any level of reason. We have had situations where staff turnover has become particularly high because of uncompetitive salary levels and because of the workloads. On top of that, we have seen an efficiency dividend that has put further strain and stress on the DPP, amongst other organisations. There are staffing issues at the DPP. These have got to be resolved if the DPP is going to do what it needs to do to make sure that delivery of justice is efficient and is effective. They are working very hard. I commend them but they need the right resources to do that. Certainly that has an impact on the victims of crime, not just the perpetrators of crime.
When it comes to the perpetrators of crime, whether they are guilty or not obviously needs to be determined once people have had their day in court. We have had the situation because of these delays where remandees have actually served more time in prison on remand than they would have eventually through the sentence that has been
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