Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-03-04 Daily Xml

Contents

Reserved Judgement Timeliness Benchmarks

In reply to the Hon. D.G.E. HOOD ().28 November 2024).

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State): I have been advised:

The judgement timeliness benchmarks are a matter for independent Heads of Jurisdiction, and not set by the state government. The Heads of Jurisdiction and the State Courts Administration Council regularly review data including outstanding judgements.

There are regular communications between my office and the Heads of Jurisdiction and the Courts Administration Authority on timeliness in the justice system.

There are several publicly available metrics on the timeliness of justice, including the Report on Government Services and the budget papers.

In respect of the comments made by Judge Muscat I note that the remarks were not in relation to the time taken for judgements rather the time from committal of the matter to sentencing. The full statement in these remarks reads 'The court is becoming frustrated through lengthy delays occasioned by psychologists taking such a long time to prepare their reports. It's not infrequent now that somebody who gets committed to this court is not sentenced for somewhere between six and 12 months. That never used to be the case.

The state government has funded the Youth Court for an additional magistrate and associated support staff, to the Coroner's Court for an additional Coroner and associated support staff; and dedicated funding to the Courts Administration Authority to manage and accommodate large multi-defendant trials resulting from Operation Ironside.