Page 2281 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 August 2015
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Magistrates without an understanding of domestic violence put women at risk as they are unable to treat cases appropriately, a key ACT legal support service says …
Women’s Legal Centre executive director Elena Rosenman said the service would be extremely supportive of the specialised court as historically women could be placed at risk “both through the process and the outcome” when domestic violence matters and protection orders reached court.
“A specialised domestic violence court means these matters would be heard by someone with a sophisticated understanding of domestic violence, someone who is alert to red flags,” she said.
That is a quote from Elena Rosenman, someone who is on the front line at the women’s legal centre.
Currently, criminal charges relating to family violence are listed separately and heard in the Magistrates Court as part of the family violence intervention program. That has been occurring since 2011. So steps certainly have been taken within the courts regarding this issue.
The Victims of Crime Commissioner, John Hinchey, said the court was not efficiently resourced for the specialist position, with the magistrate dealing with the family violence list already regularly called away for other duties. I will quote the Victims of Crime Commissioner:
“It has a compounding effect … that magistrate then has to set hearing dates for those other matters … it compromises the speciality that our family violence court is supposed to build,” he said.
“That court is under a heavy workload and decisions around resourcing have to be made by the chief magistrate.
“This is something I would ask government to pay close attention to in future resourcing of the court.”
In the ACT the family violence court only deals with criminal matters. The Domestic Violence Crisis Service executive director Mirjana Wilson said that incorporating other matters into a specialised court would be worth considering for the ACT, particularly when trying to align bail and protection order conditions. She said there would be benefits from a holistic approach to legal matters surrounding domestic violence, but was unsure if all measures could be dealt with by one court. I quote:
It is a really complex issue … We have specialist domestic violence services dealing with victims in the support phase ... it would be great to see the same specialisation held up there as being necessary in the legal system.
Mr Hinchey said that breaches of domestic violence protection orders should go before the specialised court, but initial hearings should be kept separate as the workload may be too heavy. Ms Wilson said that a dedicated domestic violence magistrate would allow the judiciary to develop a better understanding of victims and be more consistent when sentencing and protection orders. I quote:
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