Information about the Inquiry

Courts Legislation Amendment (Judicial Complaints) Bill 2012 and Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Bill 2012

Information about the Inquiry

On 22 March 2012 the Senate jointly referred the Courts Legislation Amendment (Judicial Complaints) Bill 2012 and the Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Bill 2012 for inquiry and report.

The Courts Legislation Amendment (Judicial Complaints) Bill 2012 amends the: Family Law Act 1975, Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Federal Magistrates Act 1999 to establish a framework to enable the Chief Justices of the Federal Court and the Family Court and the Chief Federal Magistrate to manage complaints that are referred to them regarding judicial officers. The bill also amends the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to exclude documents created through the complaints handling scheme from the operation of the Act.

The Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Bill 2012 enables parliamentary commissions to be established following a resolution by each House of the Parliament to investigate specified allegations of misbehaviour or incapacity of a specified Commonwealth judicial officer (including a Justice of the High Court of Australia).

Please note that the terms of reference for this inquiry are the provisions of the bills. The committee has decided that it will not be accepting, publishing, considering  or examining  any material that relates to personal cases or grievances. Any such material will be rejected by the committee as irrelevant to its inquiry.

Submissions should be received by 27 April 2012. The reporting date is 02 August 2012.

The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations preferably in electronic form submitted online or sent by email to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au as an attached Adobe PDF or MS Word format document. The email must include full postal address and contact details.

Alternatively, written submissions may be sent to:

Committee Secretary
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia

Notes to help you prepare your submission are available from the website at https://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/wit_sub/index.htm. Alternatively, the Committee Secretariat will be able to help you with your inquiries and can be contacted on telephone +61 2 6277 3560 or facsimile +61 2 6277 5794 or by email to legcon.sen@aph.gov.au.

Inquiries from hearing and speech impaired people should be directed to Parliament House TTY number 02 6277 7799. Adobe also provides tools at http://access.adobe.com/ for the blind and visually impaired to access PDF documents. If you require any special arrangements to enable you to participate in the Committee's inquiry, please contact the Committee Secretariat.

Once the Committee accepts your submission, it becomes a confidential Committee document and is protected by Parliamentary Privilege. You must not release your submission without the Committee's permission. If you do, it will not be protected by Parliamentary Privilege. At some stage during the inquiry, the Committee normally makes submissions public and places them on its website. Please indicate if you want your submission to be kept confidential.


For further information, contact:

Committee Secretary
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia

Phone:+61 2 6277 3560
Fax:+61 2 6277 5794
Email:legcon.sen@aph.gov.au