New Bankruptcy Rules in the Federal Court and the Federal Circuit Court
Monday 4 April 2016 @ 11.58 a.m. | Judiciary, Legal Profession & Procedure | Legal Research
From April 1st, the Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 and the Federal Circuit Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 will replace the Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2005 and the Federal Circuit Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2006 respectively. The old Rules were scheduled for repeal and replacement under the sunsetting provisions contained in Part 4 of Chapter 3 of the Legislation Act 2003 (Cth). The new Rules that replace them have been designed to operate in harmony between the two Courts.
According to the Federal Court website:
“The replacement rules rewrite the existing rules and:
- reflect the current drafting style for legislative instruments adopted by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel;
- correct obvious errors identified through the drafting process;
- adopt wording more consistent with the relevant enabling provisions of the Bankruptcy Act; and
- clarify, simplify and provide additional guidance where it was felt that this would be useful to court users and do not affect policy.”
The Explanatory Notes for the Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 state under “Consultation”:
“The Federal Court and the Federal Circuit Court consulted about the approach taken in the rewriting of the existing harmonised bankruptcy rules with the Harmonised Bankruptcy Rules Monitoring Committee (the Committee), AFSA and the relevant liaison committees for each Court of the Law Council of Australia. The Committee consists of representatives from the three federal courts (Federal Court, Family Court and Federal Circuit Court) and the legal profession. The time that was available for the development of the replacement harmonised rules did not, however, permit more extensive consultation about the details of those rules. As the rewrite involved no change in policy such detailed consultation was unnecessary.”
Forms
The new Rules adopt the approach used by the Federal Court Rules 2011 and the Federal Circuit Court Rules 2001, which no longer prescribes forms in the Rules themselves, but provides for the Chief Justice to approve forms for the purposes of the Rules. The forms will be published on the Federal Court website (www.fedcourt.gov.au) and the Federal Circuit Court Website (www.federalcircuitcourt.gov.au). There will be a transitional period of six months where the existing forms may still be used.
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Sources:
Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 (Cth) & Federal Circuit Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 (Cth) & Explanatory Statements - available from TimeBase's LawOne Service
Federal Court (Bankruptcy) Rules 2016 (Federal Court of Australia, 31/03/2016)
