Report from the High Court 2014
The Chief High Court Judge, the Hon Justice Winkelmann, has published her Annual Review for 2014. The report says that in 2014 the Court continued to bed-in the new criminal and civil procedural rules. In the civil area, the Court continues to hear general proceedings cases faster and the rate of cases determined by trial remains at nine per cent of filings. Although there have been drops in most new civil filings, the trial and interlocutory work that judges do has remained relatively steady. Time to hearing continues to drop which appears to be due to a combination of the method of allocation of trial dates and the 2012 Rules' approach to setting down.
In the criminal area, the report notes that the High Court continued to hear criminal cases under two statutory regimes (the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 and the Summary Proceedings Act 1957). Under the Criminal Procedure Act, protocol cases must be reviewed by a High Court judge to see if they are to be heard in the High Court. Protocol offences include serious sexual and violent offending and drug offending. The statutory procedure for identifying and processing protocol cases, prior to a decision being made by a High Court judge, is complex and appears to be causing difficulty and delay.
See the full report below.
