Page 799 - Week 03 - Thursday, 25 March 1993

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LEGAL AFFAIRS - STANDING COMMITTEE
Alteration to Resolution of Appointment

MR HUMPHRIES (11.08): Mr Deputy Speaker, I move:

That paragraph (2) of the resolution of the Assembly of 25 June 1992, as amended on 20 August 1992, referring the accessibility of the legal system to the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs for inquiry and report, be amended by omitting "by the first sitting in April 1993" and substituting "by the last sitting day of June 1993".

Members will recall that there were two inquiries referred to the Legal Affairs Committee in June of last year - one into the cost of justice or accessibility to justice, and the other into the method of conducting conveyancing in the ACT. The reporting date for both those matters was to be the first sitting day in April of this year. The latter reference to conveyancing was discharged late last year by the Assembly. The former of those two inquiries, the cost of justice reference, has caused the Legal Affairs Committee some difficulties.

Its problems have stemmed from the fact that in this area we were faced with the choice of either reproducing the work which was going on in the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs - it was simultaneously considering cost of justice issues - or alternatively waiting until that committee produced some report, either final or interim, before proceeding to do substantive work on that same question here in the ACT. It goes without saying that the justice to which the Senate inquiry refers and the justice to which the ACT Legal Affairs Committee inquiry refers are the same justice, and the cost of that justice is very substantially a question of costs imposed on the same individuals.

The terms of reference of the Senate committee are slightly more specific than the ones given to the ACT committee. I might read them into the record so that members can see how close they are to the work that we were undertaking. This is the reference to the Senate Standing Committee:

(a) The cost of legal services and litigation in Australia today, including:

(i) lawyers' fees, charges and overheads,

(ii) courts - delays, costs, listing arrangements, hours of operation and overheads, and

(iii) government charges;

(b) whether the cost of taking legal action is unacceptably high;

(d) whether there are any practicable alternatives to the present system.

They were slightly more specific issues than those put before our committee; but, clearly, the same issues would have to be dealt with by our committee.

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