Page 3103 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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Mr Archer’s analysis of it. He did not explain why the district court will be the saviour of the problems of delivering justice to the people of the ACT.
In fact, Mr Corbell’s letter to the editor raises more questions than he answers. He says in his letter that he is “looking for ways to attack the workload pressure”. He says that “the jurisdiction of an ACT District Court is yet to be fully determined”. Even so, without knowing how his district court will operate, he nonetheless in the very same sentence says that “what is clear is that there can be a reduction of the workload of the Supreme Court from this approach”.
We do not know what it is going to do, we do not know what its scope will be, but Mr Corbell can assure us that things will be better. How does he know that when he does not even know yet how the district court will operate? What is really clear is that the Attorney-General has no idea how it will work, how it will be structured, what resources will be required, how it will solve the problems or how it will make the ACT justice system more accessible and more efficient.
Once again, this ACT Labor government has come up with a big new idea but with no detail that underpins that idea. Even in the estimates committee, when asked a simple question about whether he proposed to replace a justice who will retire next year, Mr Corbell said:
It is not a matter that I have given any contemplation to at this time.
Mr Corbell’s big new idea, his virtual district court, is little more than an excuse for another media appearance, another opportunity for him to get his picture in the papers. As a publicity stunt, this has backfired substantially on the Attorney-General.
One of the loudest criticisms of this Attorney-General’s big new idea is that it came out without prior consultation. As the Bar Association said, it came out of the blue. “It ignored the advice of court officers and practitioners,” said the association. What Mr Corbell has done is to introduce his big new idea but without any detail. He says he is consulting on the detail. And in consulting on the detail he is trying to put words into the mouths of those who would comment on his big new idea.
In the media article I mentioned earlier, in which two law bodies said the district court is not necessary, Mr Corbell did a number of things. He told them a district court is the government’s preferred option. He criticised the position of the two law bodies, saying that it had “the potential to see delays in the courts exacerbated”. He went further, saying that the real risk “is that it will only allow the problem to linger on”. He even indicated that the government, like the cavalry thundering over the hill, will come to the rescue in 12 months time. In the estimates hearing, Mr Corbell made the extraordinary statement that adding a third tier to the ACT’s court structure is actually a step towards a unified court system. That beggars belief. It is ridiculous and it defies logic.
So what really is the driver behind this big new idea of Mr Corbell’s virtual district court? It is in fact not about judicial efficiency or anything of that nature. It is purely and simply about some ill-founded idea that the district court will save money. Well, let us see how it will work. The Magistrates Court will be given a higher threshold for
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