PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA LAW REFORM COMMITTEE Members Present Mr M. Thompson Mr D. Davis Mr A. McIntosh Mr T. Languiller Mr P. Katsambanis Also Present Ms P. Raman, Executive Officer/Director of Research, Parliament of Victoria Law Reform Committee Ms S. Vohra, Research Officer, Parliament of Victoria Law Reform Committee Review of Legal Services in Regional and Rural Victoria Minutes of Evidence Melbourne - 16 May 2000 Witnesses His Honour Chief Judge Glenn Waldron, AO, County Court of Victoria Mr Findlay McRae Registrar, County Court of Victoria Mr James Hartnett Chief Executive Officer, County Court of Victoria CHAIR - Firstly, welcome to the hearings this morning. Hansard will be taking a transcript of proceedings. We can provide names to Hansard of those that are speaking here this morning, so the provision of names will not be necessary per se. We thank you for taking the time to contribute to our hearing today. Chief Judge Waldron - I start with an apology. One final statistical detail was left off attachment B, if I could just provide that to the committee. It relates to the Melbourne statistics, so in one sense it is not immediately of concern to the committee's inquiries. CHAIR - I make one other comment, too. Half an hour has been allowed for our time this morning. If you could draw our attention to relevant aspects of your report over the 10 minutes or so and perhaps allow a little bit of time for committee members to then ask questions of you and your colleagues. Chief Judge Waldron - I was proposing to really, I hope, quite briefly make a general observation as to the County Court's involvement concerning circuit work. We would hope that when the committee has the opportunity to read the submission, that these comments which I make today may be, to a degree, superfluous. We would hope that the submission generally speaks for itself. The first thing I would wish to say is that we believe that we cannot overemphasise the importance and the success of the civil initiative, as we call it; that is, the operation of order 34A under the County Court Rules and the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act and along with that the CLMS, the case and list management system, which the court is evolving in regard to, first, the criminal area and, ultimately, the civil area. What we would simply say is that the whole emphasis of both those initiatives - the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act, of course, is a legislative initiative - nevertheless the court's emphasis is to be as complete and as evenhanded as we can in regard to country litigants as well as city litigants. The operation has to be moulded, of course, to the particular differences that exist in circuit cases, so far as listing of circuit cases is concerned and the like. Nevertheless, the objective - and we believe it is an objective which is being achieved - is to provide equal access to justice for country litigants to that enjoyed by their city counterparts. We have endeavoured to briefly tell the committee just what is involved in those initiatives. But I would say to you that if you wish to have those initiatives further explained, I would certainly encourage the committee to invite Judges Jones and Harbison to speak further to those initiatives, particularly Judge Jones, because the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act having been proclaimed only from 1 September last year, it is only now that we are moving into a more positive application of that act so far as circuit matters are concerned. Frankly, we believe that the prospect of very significant improvement in control of lists and disposition of lists will result from the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act and the CLMS initiative. As a side wind, I just think that I ought to say this: Professor Sallman and Mr Wright's report 'Going to Court' does make a reference - I have not read it extensively as yet but I have become aware of their reference - to the civil initiative. I am obliged to say that it is really quite misleading as to the success of the civil initiative. The reality is that at this point the time lines that the court has set itself - I might say that they say we have not set time lines, but indeed we have - are now being achieved. So that the future there, I think, is an encouraging one. I think it is necessary to say that when looking at the County Court's performance on circuit, the committee really will be looking substantially at the court's performance on circuit because I think it is fair to say - and if Mr McLean is still with us he will correct me later - save for murder trials, the Supreme Court substantially does not deal with criminal matters on circuit. It is in fact in the city as well that the so-called concurrent indictable jurisdiction shared between the two courts is very substantially dealt with by the County Court and has been for many years. But I think that circumstance is even more so on circuit. So that we do not complain about it but substantially the circuit load of the courts is borne by the County Court. If we are complaining at all, it is in regard to what we see as the very urgent need for more appropriate resourcing of the County Court's activities. There is a positive devolution, in both the civil initiative and the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act procedures, of administrative responsibility on the circuit registries. That is a very positive thing and a good thing insofar as it enhances the effective contact between the registries, thus the court, and the local practitioners and local litigants; and, of course, with the local motivation from the registry staff, the administrative support is that much more effective. As the submission indicates, in a circuit or country registry the staff are beholden to three courts. The local registrar will be the deputy prothonotary in the Supreme Court, he will be a deputy registrar in the County Court and he will be the registrar and in the more populous areas the principal registrar in the Magistrates' Court. Likewise, the staff are beholden to those three jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the funding is through the Magistrates' Court. In these days of close control of court budgets, that does produce difficulties insofar as staff being able to fulfil the duties which we ask of them in regard to these initiatives that I refer to. We are proposing to endeavour to address this with government. But we do believe it is obligatory to say to this committee that the only concern we have as to the ultimate efficacy of both those initiatives is satisfactory funding at the administrative level and also, as the submission indicates, we believe it is really very much needed for a temporary increase in the numbers of the judges. Natural attrition will always, of course, account for a circumstance, which has never occurred in my time, but one can theoretically postulate a circumstance where it will be found that there are more judges than are required. Natural attrition in a large court - there are always judges retiring over a given period - will allow that to be redressed. We have made, unsuccessfully, submissions to government to temporarily have the number of judges increased. In this interregnum period in the criminal area, where we are dealing with the pre- Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act cases along with the Crimes (Criminal Trials) Act cases as well, the withdrawal of three listing judges from the trial work has had an adverse impact on the ability of the court to meet its time lines in the criminal area. That is an inhibiting factor. Of course, if government changes its view and provides those additional judges, that will all be the better. Without going to the particularity of the submission, and I hope you would not want me to do that, I think that is the overview that we would wish to give you, prior to any questions that you and your colleagues would ask of us, Mr Chairman. CHAIR - Thank you very much. Chief Judge Waldron - I am sorry, I should have said - and I should have been prompted by Mr McLean's comments when we were seated in the audience while he was making his submission to the committee - we of course do have our internet site. In fact, it was the first site outside of America to be included in the top 10 court internet sites as perceived by whoever it was who makes that judgment. We have not made much song and dance about it but the reality is that all of the things that Mr McLean was talking about, court lists and so on, that are on the Supreme Court site are on the County Court site. Having said all that, of course, the vital thing is to make effective contact between regional Victoria and the court. The judges, of course, are all housed in Melbourne but go on circuit to the circuit courts. There is the physical contact of the judges going on circuit as regularly as we can afford with the number of judges we have. Additional to that, of course, we have got the videoconferencing and the other IT links that enhance the performance. CHAIR - Thank you. I would like to invite my colleagues to pose a few questions. MR McINTOSH - Judge, in relation to country circuits, is there a problem in relation to the backlog of cases and is there a difference you can identify between city listed cases and country listed cases? Chief Judge Waldron - It varies quite markedly.