The 19th century comes to the ACT Supreme Court

Simon Corbell has announced the advent of a docket management system for the ACT Supreme Court.

“This is a tested method to manage case loads in courts and I am confident it is an appropriate scheme to make sure that we don?t see a return to backlogs in the Supreme Court like we have in the recent past,” Mr Corbell said.

“This legislation will make the necessary changes to legislation that governs the timing of judge-alone elections to ensure that they are not inconsistent with the Court?s proposed new docket system”.

“Another major change announced by the Court was an expansion of the existing requirements for the exchange of material in criminal matters.

“The new requirements are designed to ensure that the prosecution has properly considered its position, and that the defence is fully aware of the prosecution case, before the matter is assigned to a docket judge.

“The Government?s Bill will make amendments to clarify the framework around the ordering and preparation of pre-sentence reports to assist the implementation of the proposed new requirements”.

Wikipedia informs us that the term Docket had first appeared in legal usage in 1485 so it’s nice to see we’re catching up.