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Special Edition  - Wollongong Court Closure


This is a special edition of the ebulletin to advise  South Coast FLPN members of the current situation regarding the reported closure of the Wollongong FCC.
 

Lorelle Longbottom- Chair Wollongong District Law Society has been actively recruiting support from within the sector in the last few days and will provide an update for our members shortly.

Below is the Media Release form AGD issued yesterday, followed by Lorelle's correspondence (as at 5pm Dec 4th).

You'll find the article from the 'Australian' and 'Illawarra Mercury' included. We'll keep you updated in the coming weeks.
 
AGD MEDIA RELEASE   
 

Putting federal courts on a sustainable footing

3 December 2015

 

The Government is implementing a number of important measures to ensure the federal courts are on a path to financial sustainability and better placed to deliver services to the Australian community.

At the time of the 2015 Budget, the family courts were projecting over $44 million in operating losses and the Government needed to act. An additional $22.5 million over four years was injected into the federal courts to enhance their capacity to provide services, particularly in family law. A further $30 million was committed for critical maintenance works for court buildings.

Yesterday, the Government introduced legislation to implement a further Budget measure to deliver efficiencies through the merging of corporate services functions of the Federal Court of Australia, Family Court of Australia and Federal Circuit Court of Australia. This will save $9.4 million over six years to 2020-21, and $5.4 million annually after that. Crucially, every last cent will be reinvested into the federal courts to support the delivery of their core business of providing justice for Australian litigants.

The Federal Circuit Court, which handles the lion's share of family court matters, is served by 65 judges. On 29 October 2015, I announced the appointment of four Federal Circuit Court judges. I will soon announce a further two appointments bringing the court up to its full complement.

To help support the courts, on 1 July 2015, the Government also introduced increases to court fees while maintaining exemptions and other protections for vulnerable litigants. The regulations were disallowed by the Opposition and the Greens in the Senate. Importantly, this increase was less than the increase in court fees introduced by the former Labor Government in its 2012 Budget, and would have returned more revenue back to the Courts.

These are critical measures designed to improve the delivery of justice to Australians through the courts and should be supported by the Opposition and the Greens.

From Wollongong Law Society .....
3rd December, 2015
 
Good morning Colleagues,
 
We are getting some good momentum in the media with retired judge Giles Coakes interviewed on ABC Illawarra this morning. Please see his opinion piece from the LSJ attached hereto.
 
I have spoken to the media representative for the Law Council of Australia and we have the go ahead to put forward parties to proceedings or former parties to proceedings for interviews. We have to be extremely cautious that the persons put forward are acutely aware of s121 FLA.
 
ABC News are interviewing a former party to proceedings this afternoon.  We have ABC Illawarra, ABC News and the Illawarra Mercury interested in speaking with a party to current proceedings who is being impacted upon by the massive delays.  It will be better if the proceedings are in the Wollongong Registry and not in Sydney or Parramatta.
 
Please turn your minds to whether you have a client who is impacted upon by delays to the point where they have a matter listed for a final hearing in 2017 and who would be willing to speak to the media in circumstances where we can be assured that there will be no identification of the person and no account given of the proceedings or any part of proceedings which would lead to the identification of any persons involved in the proceedings.  Please contact me if you think you have someone who may be appropriate.
 
I am told that the message being communicated by the CEOs for the FCA and FCCA is that the Parramatta Registry and the Wollongong Registry will not close but the messages are mixed and whilst ever there continues to be a huge funding gap the closure of the registries is a realistic threat. This is the message we need to be getting across.
 
I am considering coordinating a rally outside the FCCA Wollongong registry next week. I will keep you all updated.
 
 
 
Yours faithfully
Lorelle Longbottom | Partner
DGB Lawyers | PO Box 366 (DX 5157), Wollongong NSW 2520
t: +61 2 4229 5699 | f: +61 2 4229 8994 | vcard.vcf

 
4th December 2015

Dear Colleagues,
 
The  feedback on the show of support in numbers has been more positive or equivocal than in opposition. After speaking to the Law Council of Australia on this issue this afternoon to check on their position I call on members of the family law profession from the or others wanting to show their support to maintaining the  Wollongong Registry of the FCCA to gather outside the Registry Building on Wednesday 9 December 2015 at 11.00am.
 
The idea of the gathering is to gather in numbers to show the level of concern to the possible closure of registry or stripping away of our judicial resources.
 
Please encourage support staff and other colleagues who do not practice in the area of family law to come along and show their support.
 
There will be media present. If you are going to encourage clients to be there you might be mindful to caution them against speaking to any media there due to s 121 FLA.
 
Please confirm if you will be attending.
 
 
 
Yours faithfully
Lorelle Longbottom | Solicitor Partner
DGB Lawyers | PO Box 366 (DX 5157), Wollongong NSW 2520
t: +61 2 4229 5699 | f: +61 2 4229 8994 | vcard.vcf
 

Strapped family law registries face closure

  • The Australian
  • November 30, 2015 12:00

Federal Circuit Court chief judge John Pascoe has told members of the Law Council of Australia’s Family Law Section he was considering closures. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

 

Some of the busiest family law­ ­registries in the country face closure as the Federal Circuit Court grapples with a funding crisis and a blowout in court waiting times that has left some waiting more than three years for a trial date.

 

Federal Circuit Court chief judge John Pascoe told members of the Law Council of Australia’s Family Law Section in a phone hook-up last Friday that he was considering registry closures to manage the stretched resources.

Chief Judge Pascoe told those on the call he was “seriously considering” closing the Parramatta registry in Sydney’s west — one of the busiest in Australia — and the Wollongong registry south of Sydney.

The Family Law Section yesterday called on federal Attorney-General George Brandis to commit to extra funding to ensure the continued operation of both court registries, warning that their closure would be “potentially calamitous”.

Some families are waiting more than three years for a trial date and up to 18 months for an ­interim hearing to resolve disputes over children and property.

Family lawyer Paul Doolan — who is the NSW solicitor member of the FLS — said that “successive governments had failed to address the drastic underfunding of both the Federal Circuit Court and Family Court”.

“There has also been a sustained failure by the current government to appoint judicial officers to both courts,” he said.

He said the Parramatta and Wollongong registries serv­iced western Sydney, the NSW ­Illawarra and south coast regions and north and southwestern NSW — and closing them would “exacerb­ate the anguish and difficulties” of those involved in family litigation in those regions.

“The effect will be potentially calamitous in terms of access to justice for the people living in the western Sydney and Illawarra areas, to say nothing of the flow-on effects it will have for the Sydney registry of the Federal Circuit Court,” he said.

He did not believe the Sydney court building could physically ­accommodate the extra caseload.

Chief Judge Pascoe could not be reached last night for comment.

Since 2008, it is understood, the number of Family Court and Federal Circuit Court judges at Parramatta have halved from about 10 to five handling family law. In Sydney, one full-time law judge has not been replaced, one has closed his list because he is due to retire next year and another does not have hearing dates available until 2017.

FLS treasurer Michael Kearney SC said that the family law system was “near collapse” in Sydney­ and Parramatta.

“No Australian government which claimed to be committed to ... addressing the scourge of family violence could permit the Federal Circuit Court to consider the closure of these registries,” he said.

The threatened closures come after a report by consultants KPMG, handed to Senator Brandis more than 18 months ago, ­revealed the three federal courts were on track for a combined budget­ blowout of $75 million by 2017-18.

The Australian has previously revealed Senator Brandis is set to put the Federal Court in charge of running the much larger Family and Federal Circuit courts to save money. Senior family lawyers have ­labelled the move ­“bizarre” and have warned it will not address the courts’ resourcing issues.

Wollongong's family law registry to be stripped of a full-time judge

 
 
 

Under a proposal by Federal Circuit Court chief judge John Pascoe, a visiting judge will sit in Wollongong’s Burelli Street registry for only six-to-eight weeks of the year.

The proposal comes amid the Court’s deepening crisis of funding and manpower, which has seen some parents and children wait more than three years for a trial date.

The proposal has shocked Illawarra family law practitioners, who predict a further blowout in waiting times and costs for their clients.

The Wollongong and District Law Society’s family law chairwoman Lorelle Longbottom expects many will be forced to travel to Sydney – and to pay for their lawyer to do the same. Assuming a matter required 12 court dates over a three-year period, this could add around $7000 to her clients’ legal bill, she suggested.

Property valuations and expensive psychiatric reports could become outdated as cases dragged on. Meantime, children caught up in the proceedings endured prolonged exposure to “conflict and uncertainty”. 

“[Delays] have a massive ripple effect,” Ms Longbottom said.

"Some parties will have spent $17,000 on a report, then that report goes stale, so they’ve got to pay for updating it.

“We’ve been pushing for a long, long time to appoint a full-time judge to Wollongong. To get the opposite outcome would be bitterly, bitterly disappointing.”

Judge Tom Altobelli is intended to spend 75 per cent of his sitting time in Wollongong, but with 550 matters waiting to be heard, he has become unofficially full-time. 

With several Sydney and Parramatta judges poised to retire, and the Court in the grip of an unofficial, Federal Government-imposed hiring freeze, Sydney courts are expected to become further overrun. 

A spokeswoman for the Federal Circuit Court of Australia said said the workload at Wollongong registry warranted a full-time judge. 

“However the Court's resources are such that Judge Altobelli cannot remain based in Wollongong unless there are new appointments ... to replace Judges who have retired,” she said.

Under the proposal, parties could continue to file documents at the Wollongong registry. But judges would only “circuit” to the area to hear matters “depending on available resources”. 

Of the proposal, Chief Judge Pascoe said: "This is not something the Court wants to do, but retirements in Sydney and Parramatta have left the Court with insufficient resources for an ever-increasing and more complex workload”.

“Clearly Wollongong will be given priority if further judicial resources become available to the Court."



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