Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland has endorsed a plan to dismantle the Federal Magistrates’ Court, incorporating its family law division into the Family Court and the rest into the Federal Court.
The Australian
Although the Court will be split up, the magistrates still love all their litigants, very much. Whatever happens, don’t forget that.
The Attorney-General told The Australian that the Federal Magistrates’ Court (FMC) was “faster, cheaper and less formal” than the courts that will take over its functions. Formed by the former Howard government in 1999, the FMC was one of the first tribunals to introduce casual sitting days. It also encourages counsel to address magistrates as “your dudeness.”
But while he sees the FMC’s culture as a positive for litigants, Mr McLelland is adamant that the court was a “mistake” and that “doing nothing is not an option.” Mr McLelland has obviously been panicked into action by the widely-perceived crisis in the federal magistracy. Talkback radio is jammed with callers demanding that 23 of the 59 magistrates be transferred to a new second-tier within the federal court. Canberra is regularly choked with demonstrators chanting and holding up placards reading “Federal judges handling only the more complex cases, not in our name!”
There is no guarantee that the family-law magistrates transferred to the Family Court will get along with their new colleagues, with The Australian reporting that FMC staff were recently banned from the Family Court tearoom in Adelaide for stealing “Family Court teabags”. Teabagging is a major issue in one per cent of all family law matters.
Mr McClelland told The Australian that “getting our family law system right is a significant access-to-justice issue”.
He later clarified “so rush on in for the huge Federal Magistrates’ Court closing-down sale. This experiment within the federal court system cannot last, so rush in for an unbelievable ruling today!”
