Page 45 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 25 February 2014
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In response to plaintiff lawyers’ concerns about the transfer of proceedings from or to the Supreme Court, an amendment to section 268 of the Magistrates Court Act will clarify that the statutory test for a transfer of proceedings applies at the time a transfer is made. This clarification will remove the risk of a challenge to an order transferring a matter to the Magistrates Court, and remove any doubt about applicable procedures.
The government is also making a number of practical amendments to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act. Following a recent Supreme Court ruling on costs, an amendment will clarify that the tribunal has powers to award incidental costs, other than the filing fee for the application. When the tribunal decides an application in favour of the applicant, it is only fair that it is able to award other incidental costs which the applicant may have incurred in bringing the application forward.
An amendment to section 48(2)(a) will allow the tribunal to award incidental costs, including any other fees incurred by the applicant, that the tribunal considers necessary for the application. These other fees would include, for example, company or business name search fees, subpoena filing fees or hearing fees.
Also, following a request from the general president of the tribunal, an amendment to remove the unworkable and unhelpful 12-week time limit for a tribunal interim order to expire will help improve the overall operations of the tribunal. Where the tribunal is unable to hear a matter pending the resolution of other criminal matters in the Supreme Court, the applicant has to reapply for interim orders every 12 weeks until the criminal matters are decided. This leads to unrealistic filing timetables and additional costs on applicants. This is an important reform and one which will further streamline the process for all parties.
The government is also making several important amendments to the Coroners Act to reduce the number of unnecessary coronial inquiries into deaths and to improve autopsy practice in the territory. These changes will deliver important community benefits to ensure that deaths only undergo coronial investigation and full autopsy for good reasons and then only to the extent that it is strictly necessary to obtain the information the coroner requires.
The proposed changes to the act are consistent with legislative recommendations made in the final report of the recent review of ACT coronial and post-mortem process and practice, which was provided to the Chief Coroner and my directorate by Dr Charles Naylor, Chief Forensic Pathologist from Queensland, in August last year,
The review was commissioned by the courts and tribunal administration to improve current coronial and post-mortem process and practice in the Coroner’s Court and in the ACT Forensic Medicine Centre. That review revealed that over 16 per cent of ACT registered deaths underwent coronial investigation in 2011. This is the second highest coronial death investigation rate in the country.
The two factors influencing this high rate are the reporting requirements in section 13 relating to healthcare deaths and non-suspicious natural deaths being reported due to the lack of a cause of death certificate. To ensure that deaths only undergo coronial
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