Page 1917 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 1992
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PAPER
MR BERRY (Deputy Chief Minister): Madam Speaker, for the information of members, I present, pursuant to section 34 of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1990, the Director of Public Prosecutions annual report for 1991-92.
JUDICIAL COMMISSIONS LEGISLATION - EXPOSURE DRAFT
Papers
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services): Madam Speaker, for the information of members, I present an exposure draft of the judicial commissions legislation which comprises a draft of the Judicial Commissions Bill, a draft of the Judicial Commissions (Consequential Amendments) Bill and a draft of the explanatory statement relating to the legislation. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
Madam Speaker, during April 1992 this Assembly unanimously passed a motion calling upon the Commonwealth Parliament to amend the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act to, amongst other things, provide for the removal of judicial officers to be governed by a judicial commission process. The amendments to the self-government Act commenced on 1 July last and it is now timely that the Government table for public comment draft legislation governing the removal of judicial officers.
The self-government Act, in creating an ACT body politic, provided for the existence and powers of two of the arms of government, namely, the Executive and the legislature, but was silent as to the third arm of government, the judicature. There are understandable concerns that a jurisdiction's Supreme Court should be independent of the executive arm of government whose actions it may be called upon to scrutinise. The amendments to the self-government Act, to all intents and purposes, amount to the entrenchment in legislation, which cannot be altered by this Assembly, of key constitutional safeguards for the Supreme Court and the judiciary. Some of those protections relate to the circumstances in which a judicial officer may be removed and the means by which removal is effected.
In introducing into the Assembly the motion on constitutional recognition of the Supreme Court and judicial tenure, I said:
It is now almost 300 years since the English Act of Settlement of 1701 established the principle that judges, acting in their judicial capacities, are immune from both the executive and the parliament. That principle remains the cornerstone of judicial independence in systems of justice that are derived from that of the United Kingdom. Judicial independence has traditionally been achieved by providing that judges can be removed from office only by an address of parliament on the grounds of proved misbehaviour or incapacity. In Australia such independence is conferred on Federal judges by the Commonwealth Constitution.
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