The Federal Circuit Court has hit back at suggestions its judges are not appropriately qualified to handle complex family law cases.
Stuart Fenwick, the chief executive and principal registrar of the court, has taken the unusual step of writing to a parliamentary committee to defend the court’s judges. His letter came after a representative of the NSW Bar told the committee that not all judges handing family law cases in the Federal Circuit Court had the necessary “training, qualification or experience”.
Mr Fenwick said the Federal Circuit Court, which now handles almost 90 per cent of all family law cases, had the “highest number of specialist dedicated judges in family law of any court in Australia”.
“All have the education, training and skill to conduct complex family law cases,” he said. “These judges have an average of over 25 years’ experience in family law and many have been on the court for over 10 years.”
The bipartisan Legal and Constitutional Affairs legislation committee last night called on the government to commit to more legal aid funding to address proposed new laws that will prevent domestic violence victims from having to cross-examine, or being directly cross examined by the perpetrators. The funding is aimed at providing lawyers for cases involving litigants who do not meet the usual eligibility requirements for legal aid, but cannot afford a private lawyer.
The committee recommended the new laws be passed because they strike the “correct balance” between protecting victims and ensuring procedural fairness — subject to legal aid funding details being made public before the bill is debated.
Attorney-General Christian Porter told The Australian the government was “already working closely with National Legal Aid to fully consider anticipated impacts and ensure adequate funding is available to ensure the Bill is effectively implemented”.
He said research showed there were very few cases in which the protections were necessary — 173 final hearings over a two-year period had involved allegations of family violence where one or both parties were self-represented.
Concern about the expertise of Federal Circuit Court judges comes as the government is set to scrap the Family Court, which handles the most complex 10 per cent of family law cases.
Some lawyers have raised concerns that the lower-level Federal Circuit Court judges do not have the specialist expertise needed to handle the most complex cases.
The head of the NSW Bar’s family law committee Michael Kearney SC had told the parliamentary inquiry any inappropriate comments about domestic violence he had heard from the bench had “almost universally” come from Federal Circuit Court judges with no family law background.
He said not all Federal Circuit Court appointments met the “spirit” of a Family Law Act requirement that judges hearing family law cases have appropriate expertise in family law. The requirement only applies to Family Court judges.
However, in his letter to the committee, Mr Fenwick said the Federal Circuit Court had 68 judges, 40 of whom were specialist family law judges and another 16 judges were experienced in family law and general federal law.
“Notwithstanding the extraordinary disposition rate of the Court’s judges only 1 per cent of their decisions are the subject of an appeal,” Mr Fenwick said.
He said the average time taken to finalise matters in the Sydney and Parramatta registries of the Federal Circuit Court was 14.6 months and 13.7 months respectively, not three years, as had been suggested by Mr Kearney.
In the last nine months, from October 2017, the court had increased its clearance rate to 104.3 per cent — its highest clearance rate for 15 years — which meant it was now resolving cases more quickly than they were commenced and allowing it to reduce its backlog, Mr Fenwick said.
In some registries this had reduced delays in cases being heard by more than six months.
Article by NICOLA BERKOVIC
LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT – The Australian
Source: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/federal-circuit-court-hits-back-at-claims-judges-cant-handle-complex-family-law-cases/news-story/f6de0372cc27b6c963c08566133ec0fb?csp=a250232d085521e920f30696179c0cbe