Notices of motion under O 19, Federal Court Rules

Note: This Practice Notice was superseded on January 29 2008 by Practice Notice NSW 2008/2

1. With the commencement of the Individual Docket System (IDS), new arrangements have been made for the listing of notices of motion. (The IDS involves each case being allocated to a particular Judge (docket Judge) who will ordinarily be responsible for that case from commencement to finalisation.)

2. A notice of motion presented to the Registry will be listed for directions or hearing in accordance with the following procedures:

a. where the legal representative of a party has arranged with the docket Judge's Associate for a directions date or a special fixture, and provides to the Registry a letter confirming that arrangement, the notice of motion will be listed accordingly;

b. where a party seeks short service (i.e. a return date less than five clear days after service) of an initiating application, this will be heard by the Duty Judge. Where short service of a notice of motion in a pending proceeding is sought (i.e. a return date less than three clear days after service), the legal representative should ordinarily contact the docket Judge's Associate to make arrangements for the hearing of the short service application. In appropriate circumstances, if the docket Judge is unavailable, the docket Judge's Associate will arrange for such an application to be heard by the Duty Judge. If the docket Judge's Associate cannot be contacted within such time as is reasonable in the circumstances, the legal representative of the party seeking the order for short service may request that the application be heard by the Duty Judge. The legal representative should provide to the Registry on filing the notice of motion a letter confirming the arrangement made with the docket Judge's Associate or the circumstances otherwise;

c. where a party seeks expedition of an application or appeal to the Full Federal Court, this will be heard by the Judge responsible for Full Court Callovers;

d. where no prior arrangement has been made with the docket Judge's Associate, and short service is not sought or granted, the notice of motion will be listed for directions in the next Directions List (allowing for three clear days for service) of the docket Judge. Once filed, the notice of motion and supporting affidavit(s) will immediately be referred to the chambers of the docket Judge. In many cases, the Associate to the docket Judge will contact the parties to arrange a different directions date or a special fixture. A party may, at any time, contact the Associate to the docket Judge for this purpose should the directions date fixed in the Registry be inappropriate;

e. subject to para. (b) above, in any case where there is no docket Judge at the time a notice of motion is sought to be filed or the docket Judge will not be available at the time the motion will need to be heard, the notice of motion will ordinarily be listed before the Duty Judge and the procedures in para. (d) above will otherwise apply.

3. It is expected that, unless there are special circumstances, the subject matter of the motion will be discussed with all other interested parties with a view to alleviating the need for the Court to intervene. Failure to do so may have consequences on costs.

John Mathieson
District Registrar
22 January 1998