Specialist Panels in General Federal Law
Introduction
The Federal Magistrates Court has established Panels for its general federal law
jurisdictions.
The Court sees the establishment of panels in its specialist jurisdictions as an
important stage in the ongoing development of the Court. The Court believes that the Panel system will best enable it to use its judicial resources effectively according to its jurisdictions and to
maintain the Court's commitment to the economical, less formal and prompt disposition of its workload.
The Panels provide an opportunity for members to develop and maintain expertise in the
jurisdictional areas allotted. The Panels that have been, or are proposed to be established, are set out at the end of this Note. The Court advises that the Panels have been established in order to
ensure that work is handled by Federal Magistrates with expertise in the area and with a commitment to allocating appropriate priority to the cases assigned to them. The Court also advises that diary
rules adopted for 2006 are intended to ensure that cases in these jurisdictions will be dealt with generally within a target time frame of six months after filing.
The Federal Magistrates Court maintains its commitment to serving the community in rural
and regional Australia by travelling to country centres to hear cases when requested and facilitating hearings through the use of video link, telephone directions and electronic filing.
Panels
The following Panels will be progressively established in each Registry.
Further Panels will be established as the Court is granted additional jurisdiction. The
Court may also modify the panel composition over time.
Convenors of Panels and allocation of applications to Panel Members
The Chief Federal Magistrate will appoint a Convenor for each Panel, the Convenor being
responsible for the allocation of applications to Panel members.
Cases are allocated randomly to Federal Magistrates by the Registry (following
instructions from Convenors) and a docket management system is adopted. Once an application which falls within a panel jurisdiction is docketed to a Federal Magistrate on the Panel, it will generally
remain with that Federal Magistrate.
Urgent Applications
Urgent applications will be dealt with in accordance with Part 5 of the Federal
Magistrates Court Rules 2001. The Registry will be the first contact point for any urgent applications received in normal business hours. District Registries can provide information on the means of
making urgent applications in particular jurisdictions, both during and outside of ordinary business hours. Urgent applications in Panel cases made out of business hours will be considered by the Duty
Federal Magistrate, who may, depending on the circumstances, make arrangements for urgent applications to be referred to a Panel member.
Panel liaison with practitioners
Panel Convenors will establish appropriate specialist liaison groups with relevant
practitioners.
Composition of Panels
The Panel Convenors and Members as at 1 September 2006. Click to view
panel members.
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