Justice denied?

Themis If you read what I said in #4, I understand the situation, believe me, and am frustrated, it is so unfair to the victims and their families, I had spoken to HVSG, I was told only three months to wait for trial in Sydney.

cleo said :

Themis Well this hasn’t happened yet, and isn’t likely too, somethings got to give, and who is going to speed things up, or really knows what the problem is, maybe they should have a pow wow.

With great respect cleo, it needs more than a “pow wow”. Take a look at the top four ACT Supreme Court decisions at http://www.courts.act.gov.au/supreme/search/judgments.asp

Two matters were decided by the recent appointees; the other two by the CJ and Gray J. Of the newbies’ decisions, one matter was heard in Sep/Oct 2008 with judgment handed down on 19 October 2009. The other was heard on 20 March 2008 with judgment handed down on 27 October 2009. Contrast this with a hearing date of 31 August 2009 and judgment on 19 October 2009 (the CJ) and 29 July 2009 and 23 October 2009 respectively for Gray J. While this doesn’t take into account the individual facts and complexities of each case, it does suggest a trend on the part of the judicial officers concerned to take far longer than their more senior colleagues to decide matters.

The independence of the judiciary is central to a liberal democracy. However, this does not mean that the judiciary is immune from complaints of incapacity that in part might be evidenced by a backlog of judgments.

Themis Well this hasn’t happened yet, and isn’t likely too, somethings got to give, and who is going to speed things up, or really knows what the problem is, maybe they should have a pow wow.

There certainly are long delays in the Supreme Court; but the neither the Judiciary nor the Government comes with clean hands.

Appointing academics and public servants to judicial office may satisfy political agendas. However, it is unconscionable to appoint people at $330,000pa, only to find that because of a lack of court room experience, they need to learn how to do it ab initio.

Simon Corbell should resist calls for an additional judge. Instead, he should insist that the recent appointees become more productive – quickly.

I agree with Judge Higgins, we really do NEED another judge, ASAP!

What about the human rights of the victims and their families, surely they have SOME rights, having to wait for justice to be done, HOPEFULLY! The victims and families rights were violated, DO THE CRIME AND DO THE TIME!

Flow on news from previous article (With a strikingly similar title, Jb…)

So we have a backlog in the courts, so bad that that detainees can claim a violation of their human rights, (the prohibition on arbitrary detention, specifically)?
Section 18, part 4:
Anyone who is arrested or detained on a criminal charge—
(a) must be promptly brought before a judge or magistrate; and
(b) has the right to be tried within a reasonable time or released.

Either the HRA law is way too simple to invoke (or our judges are frankly afraid of getting in the way of someone making a human rights violation claim, valid or not), or we have a massive problem.
(But nothing says bad publicity quite as effectively as a “human rights violated” headline)

Interesting that Simon Corbell, Spinmeister-General, has let his spokesman come out and admit that things now are roughly no better than they were a year ago.
A spokesman for Mr Corbell said that the court’s waiting times were about the same as they were a year ago and that there were some spaces for short matters one day or less to be listed before 2011.

I thought justice was one of those big city things, not something we could have in Canberra thanks to our softly softly approach…

Let’s face it, even in 2011, even in the face of evidence showing the person is guilty beyond all doubt, our courts would let them walk, often without any (meaningful) slap on the wrist.