Local Court of New South Wales Annual Review 2008 Contents Foreword by Chief Magistrate of New South Wales 2 1 An overview of the Local Court 4 Jurisdictions and divisions 5 The Magistrates 9 Chief Magistrate’s executive office 13 The work of the Local Court registries 14 2 Court operations during 2008 15 Criminal jurisdiction 16 Civil jurisdiction 19 Children’s Court 20 Coronial jurisdiction 22 Industrial jurisdiction 25 Licensing Court 25 Mental health 26 Mining jurisdiction 26 3 Diversionary programmes and other aspects of the Court’s work 27 Diversionary programmes 28 Children’s Court diversion programmes 31 Technology in the Local Court 32 4 Judicial education and community involvement 35 Judicial education and professional development 36 Legal education in the community and participation in external bodies 38 Appendices 45 The Court’s time standards 46 The Court’s committees 47 Court by Court statistics 48 1 Foreword by Chief Magistrate of New South Wales It is with pleasure that I present the Local Court offenders with the skills necessary to develop Annual Review for 2008. The past year was safer driving behaviours. A pilot programme of another busy one for the Court. Against the care circles commenced at Nowra Local Court in background of an ever-increasing workload, the December. The programme hopes to incorporate Court maintained its commitment to excellence in the successful principles of circle sentencing the area of case management and to alternative into the care division of the Children’s Court, sentencing and court based diversionary by enabling active participation of Aboriginal programmes. community members in decisions involving care arrangements for the child or young persons. For the sixth consecutive year, the Local Court of New South Wales and Children’s Court achieved Alongside the operation of these formal the lowest criminal case backlog in Australia. As and legislated intervention and diversionary noted in previous years, considering the Court programmes, the Court also furthered its handles more than 95% of the State’s criminal cooperative working relationship with various matters, this is a significant contribution to the government agencies during 2008. In particular, efficient administration of justice in the State. The the Mental Health liaison programme continues Court also achieved the lowest backlog of cases to operate in 19 Local Courts and the Court older than 12 months In the Coronial jurisdiction. involved itself with both Macquarie University, in its training of Allied Health professionals and Whilst the Court is justly proud of its the Institute of Psychiatry accredited courses achievements in efficiently managing its caseload for Mental Health professionals. The Court also in the face of difficult resource issues, it remains committed to the criminal case conferencing committed to maintaining the fairness and trial in cooperation with the NSW DPP, which effectiveness of outcomes. As in previous years, endeavours to finalise plea negotiations before the Court in 2008 was a strong supporter of committal hearings take place in the Local Court. programmes that aim to address aspects of causation of offending and rates of recidivism. One of the major commitments I made at the The Magistrate’s Early Referral into Treatment beginning of 2008 on behalf of the Court was programme (MERIT) and associated Rural to develop an enduring improvement in the Alcohol Diversion programme (RAD), continued communication and management of issues to operate successfully in the Local Court during involving the Aboriginal community and the 2008. Following its successful evaluation in 2007, Court. To that end an invitation was extended to the Adult Conferencing programme, renamed the Aboriginal project officers from each of the Forum Sentencing expanded in 2008 to a further Circle Courts to attend the regional conferences seven Court locations, with the programme for Magistrates. Following this invitation and criteria also expanding to include all adult participation by the Court, reciprocal invitations offenders not just those under 25. An evaluation from a number of Community Justice Groups of Circle Sentencing conducted by the Cultural were received for the Court to visit and speak and Indigenous Research Centre found that the with Elders and respected persons about our programme was successfully meeting all of its system of justice and the consequences of qualitative objectives. In particular, confidence in involvement in it for victims and offenders. The the sentencing process was found to be high and Local Court also commenced making referrals Elders, project officers and offenders all indicated to the Baland-A programme located at Tabulam. that barriers between Aboriginal people and It offers indigenous offenders who are otherwise the Courts have reduced to some extent. This facing a custodial sentence the opportunity whilst is a positive reflection on the programme and on a section 11 remand to attend a residential testament to the hard work of Magistrates and centre situated near the Clarence River. There is project officers involved in coordinating the circle a strong cultural element to the services offered process. as well as a full medical and mental health assessment. In early 2008 Magistrates also commenced making referrals to approved traffic offenders Whilst the efforts of Magistrates in the areas courses as part of a new Traffic Offender outside of traditional Court processes and Programme (TOP) with the aim of providing therapeutic justice in particular, are greatly valued 2 Chief Magistrate’s Office Annual Review 2008 by the Court and the community, facilitating three Magistrates to the Local Court bench. these alternatives is necessarily time consuming. This enabled the Court to focus the use of its Caseload indicators do not adequately reflect resources where they are most needed and to the additional judicial time involved in the accommodate anticipated demographic changes implementation, expansion and creation of within the Hunter Valley and North Coast. Two these programmes. The impact is felt by way of new country circuits were created, headquartered additional appearances by an offender in Court, at Kempsey and Cessnock, and commenced additional time taken to sentence an offender sittings at the beginning of the 2009 Court year. and the incorporation of additional material As a consequence of the creation of these new such as MERIT reports, psychiatric reports and circuits, Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour have intervention plans into the sentencing process. become full-time Courts. The third position will be With this in mind the success of the Court in used to target delays in Western Sydney and the keeping to its published time standards becomes Illawarra. even more impressive. As cautioned in previous Further changes in the jurisdiction of the Court years, however, the continually rising workload of were occasioned by the transfer of the Mining the Court has made the exigencies of resource jurisdiction to the Land and Environment Court. management particularly pressing. Changes to the Mental Health Act enacted last Since the passage in 1995 of the Criminal year will transfer the responsibility for conducting Procedure Amendment (Indictable Offences) Act Mental Health inquiries away from Magistrates the Local Courts criminal workload has increased to the Mental Health Review Tribunal in 2009. by some 41% whilst the number of Magistrates In regional areas it is hoped that this will offset in the Court increased by only 3%. At the same the additional burden created by Magistrates time the nature of the work undertaken by the assuming Coronial responsibilities. Court is of increasing complexity and objective As with last year’s review, this review also makes seriousness. As I noted last year, it has become mention of Magistrates’ commitment to, and clear that the finalisation of more serious criminal involvement in, educational and other community offences within the Local Court has become an initiatives. Of particular note in 2008 was the important and realistic option for the Office of Court’s continued involvement with the education Director of Public Prosecutions. Statistically the programme of Papua New Guinea Magistrates. trend in increasing finalisation of matters in the In November 2008, Deputy Chief Magistrate Paul Local Court as opposed to the District Court can Cloran and Magistrate David Heilpern travelled be seen across a number of serious offences. to Papua New Guinea to assist in delivering the Alongside the Court’s performance and efficiency, second orientation programme in Lae for 10 PNG the annual report on Government services Magistrates. This was followed by a three-day (ROGs) also highlighted that New South Wales Consistency in Sentencing Workshop for 20 PNG has the second lowest allocation of Magistrates Magistrates. in the Commonwealth, with only 1.6 per 100,000 people compared to 2.4 per 100,000 people in As the busiest and largest Court in Australia, Victoria. This is particularly exacerbated when the New South Wales Local Court is the primary comparative workloads are analysed. By way of interface between the community and the legal example, in the important area of children’s care system in this State. The delivering of quality and protection, the caseload according to ROGs outcomes to stakeholders and the efficient in New South Wales in the 2007/08-year was operation of the Local Court system depends on 8,404 matters, which is over double most other an effective partnership