National Court Framework Reforms Commence for Practice Areas

Monday 11 January 2016 @ 11.35 a.m. | Legal Research

The new National Court Framework (NCF), a reform initiative of the Federal Court of Australia, has commenced operation with the first components rolling out over December 2014 and the new practice area components rolling out in January 2016.

Background to the Reforms

As previously covered by TimeBase, the aims of the reforms are to create 8 new national practice areas including:

  1. Administrative, Constitutional Law & Human Rights
  2. Native Title
  3. Commercial and Company
  4. Taxation
  5. Intellectual Property
  6. Industrial Relations and Labour
  7. Admiralty and Maritime
  8. Criminal Cartel Trials

Additionally, the Court is in the process of reinvigorating its case management approach through the NCF. The NCF has four main goals; to:

  • organise and manage nationally the whole of the Court's work by reference to the great subject matter areas of the Court's work;
  • organise the Court's resources to meet the demands of the broad range of work done by the Court;
  • develop the confidence of the profession and the community, particularly in areas requiring a degree of specialised skill and knowledge; and
  • broaden the base of judicial knowledge and experience in the Court.

To achieve those goals, the Court will restructure itself, broadly, as follows:

  1. Restructure the system of allocation of matters to ensure efficiency, national consistency and the allocation of matters to Judges in the most appropriate manner;
  2. Create, with consultation, new simplified practice notes reflecting the national practice areas, driven by a central case management practice note which offers guidance to parties, the profession and judges about critical aspects of practice; and
  3. Operate a carefully managed docket system to support judges and facilitate timely judgment delivery, with allocation principles taking account of workload management, practice area expertise, and the character of matters filed.

Update on Current Matters of Reform

The following reforms have already been implemented:

  • National Consulting judges to oversee each practice area;
  • Uniform approach to registry and administration; and
  • Commercial and Corporate Law National Practice Area (NPA).

Additionally, on 8 January 2016, Chief Justice Allsop announced the Federal Court's intention to establish an Insurance List for short matters within the Commercial Contracts, Banking, Finance and Insurance sub-area of the Commercial and Corporations NPA.  According to Moray and Agnew Lawyers:

"The list is not intended to deal with all insurance claims. It will deal with ‘short matters’, that is, matters in which the hearing will take ‘no more than about two hours’ concerning policy interpretation or questions of law concerning the operation of insurance legislation.

The two-fold aim of the list is to provide those in the insurance community such as underwriters, reinsurers, brokers, and insureds with:

1.    prompt and efficient resolution of crucial issues in the hope that resolution of those issues may facilitate resolution of the balance of the dispute by agreement or mediation; and

2.    a ‘streamlined and expeditious method of policy interpretation where such is important for the wording or pricing of policies more generally’.

The list will cover marine and non-marine insurance. Leave to appeal from a decision will be dealt with expeditiously before judges hearing matters in this sub-area of the Commercial and Commercial and Corporations National Practice Area."

Practice Notes Draft Consultation

The key purpose of the NPA's is to reinvigorate its approach to case management by further modernising the Court’s operations so that the Court is better placed to meet the demands of litigants, nationally and internationally. A key component of this reform is the review of the Court’s practice documents to ensure nationally consistent and simplified practice. Currently, the Court has approximately 60 practice documents governing how it operates, however it is expected that under the NPA's there will no longer be administrative State-based notices and practice documents will be refined to no more than 25 – 30 documents.

An extensive review has already been undertaken over the 8 national practice areas and consultation papers concerning  the Central Practice Note, NPA Practice Notes and General Practice Notes will be issued in March 2016.

TimeBase is an independent, privately owned Australian legal publisher specialising in the online delivery of accurate, comprehensive and innovative legislation research tools including LawOne and unique Point-in-Time Products.

Sources:

Related Articles: