Federal Court User Group Liaison
Committee - NSW - Minutes
8 May 2003
Present: Justice Branson, Federal Court
of Australia (Convenor)
Justice Emmett, Federal Court of Australia
John Mathieson, (District Registrar) Federal Court of
Australia
Peter Johnstone, (Representative) Law Society of NSW
Pieter Oomens, (Representative) Law Society of NSW
Apologies: Justice Tamberlin, Federal Court
of Australia
Malcolm Oakes SC, (Representative) NSW Bar Association
Ian Tunstall (Representative) Law Society of NSW
Sylvia Fernandez, (Representative) Law Society of NSW
1. Minutes of Meeting of 5
December 2002
The minutes, circulated prior
to the meeting were adopted.
It was agreed that it would be useful for one or both
of the resident Sydney Federal Magistrates to be invited
to attend one of the future meetings of the Committee
to talk about issues of concern or interest in the Federal
Magistrates Court.
John Mathieson outlined the developments in regard to
airport-type screening in the Law Courts Building.
In the absence of Justice Tamberlin and with Justice Lindgren
being currently overseas, it was agreed that further discussion
on information sessions on Federal Court practice and
procedure would be deferred until the next meeting of
the Committee.
2. Specialist User Group Meetings
Justice Branson noted that following
contact with the members of the Liaison Committee invitations
had been extended to members of the legal profession generally
to attend Users Groups Meetings in each of the specialist
panel areas of the NSW Registry of the Federal Court.
Meetings had already been held in the areas of Corporations
(incorporating insolvency in general), Admiralty and Tax.
Justice Emmett said that he felt that the discussion which
had taken place and suggestions made at these meetings
was very worthwhile. John Mathieson said that following
completion of the initial round of meetings he would prepare
an analysis of any general issues raised at the specialist
User Groups meetings for consideration by the Liaison
Committee.
Peter Johnstone reported that Blake Dawson Waldron was
reviewing its policy of bringing all corporations applications
in the Supreme Court. Pieter Oomens said that the Supreme
Court of NSW had made itself very easy and quick to deal
with in its corporations list matters. Practitioners were
comfortable with the system and familiar with practice
and procedure and unlikely to change for other than good
reason.
Justice Branson said that it had been recently been suggested
to her that solicitors preferred to bring substantial
commercial cases in the Supreme Court rather than the
Federal Court because experience had shown that an order
for the payment of party and party costs leads to significantly
greater recovery in the Supreme Court than in the Federal
Court. Both Peter Johnstone and Pieter Oomens said they
were not aware that any such perception existed. Peter
Johnstone said that he could see the point and would make
enquiries within Blake Dawson Waldron to see if that perception
existed there.
Peter Johnstone also said he will
enquire within Blake Dawson Waldron about whether any
the relevant practitioners feel that there is a need for
a migration user group to be established. There was discussion
about whether the legal profession might be aided by a
program of legal education in the migration area in which
the Court played a role or whether this was accommodated
by existing programs.
3. Uniform approach to signature
of Court documents
John Mathieson reported that the
discussion paper provided by Blake Dawson Waldron following
the 5 December 2002 meeting of the Liaison Committee had
been discussed at a meeting of the Court's District Registrars
on 5 March 2003 and the District Registrars had agreed
to recommend to the Rules Committee that it consider possible
amendment to the rules to make it clear that each document
in a proceeding must be personally signed by a solicitor
with primary responsibility for the conduct of the proceedings
or one of the people currently specified in Order 45 rule
9 (i.e. partner of the solicitor, solicitor who is an
agent of the solicitor, a partner of the agent or a solicitor
employed by the solicitor or by the agent).
Peter Johnstone said that the view of Blake Dawson Waldron
is that the solicitor on record should be the partner
with the carriage of the matter.
4. Omissions and inaccuracies
in Sydney Morning Herald Law List
John Mathieson outlined that the
Court had been concerned for some time about the inaccuracies
and omissions in the information published in the Sydney
Morning Herald, not only the Federal Court's listings
but other courts and tribunals as well.
Both Peter Johnstone and Pieter Oomens said that they
believed most solicitor's firms do not rely on the list
in the Sydney Morning Herald at all but instead used the
Court's Internet law list. They said that they expected
that parties and witnesses would, however, rely on the
Sydney Morning Herald.
Pieter Oomens suggested that it might help if documents
to be served were stamped with a note about the Court's
Internet Website address for its law list. This would
at least alert respondents, witnesses etc to the more
accurate source of information.
5. Proposal to harmonise and
simplify civil procedure rules in NSW
Peter Johnstone provided an outline of the work being
undertaken by a working party set up by the NSW Attorney
General's Department to review, in terms similar to what
had been done in Queensland with its Uniform Procedures
Rules, the civil procedures of all NSW courts. The working
party for this review meets weekly. It started looking
at those parts of procedures which are common or similar
and hopes to be able to achieve a Civil Procedure Act
in NSW within a year. The work is being driven by the
proposal to implement a common computerised case management
system across all of the NSW courts.
Justice Emmett queried how the Federal Court might fit
in with the new procedures and there was discussion about
the possibility that individual states might achieve consistency
amongst their own courts but not consistency between states.
It was agreed that it was important that the Federal Court
be consistent in its procedures nationally.
Peter Johnstone was invited to keep the Committee informed
about the progress of the review and particularly about
areas in which there might be an advantage if the Federal
Court were to adopt procedures consistent with that adopted
in the NSW courts.
There was no discussion on this
standing item, save and except for that dealt with under
item 2 above.
7. Individual Docket System
(standing item)
There was no discussion on this
standing item.
8. Issues/Concerns/Suggestions
(standing item)
There was no discussion on this
standing item.
9. Other Business
There was no discussion on this
item.
10. Frequency and dates for
2003 meetings
It was agreed that, subject to
comments from all Committee Members, that the next meeting
of the Committee would be held at 4.30 pm on Thursday
25 September 2003.
