The NSW Government will today introduce legislation allowing Local Court magistrates to be known as judges to better reflect the importance of work done in this jurisdiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amendments to the Local Court Act 2007<\/em> will change the title of judicial officers including Chief Magistrate, Deputy Chief Magistrate, Children\u2019s Magistrate, Chief Industrial Magistrate, Industrial Magistrate and Acting Magistrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This change reflects the nature and volume of work done by the Local Court which is Australia\u2019s busiest court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year, more than 388,000 criminal matters commenced in the Local Court, a 34% increase since 2014. There were also more than 67,800 civil matters commenced, up 31% since 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The title of \u2018magistrate\u2019 stems from an era where judicial officers were appointed from the ranks of public servants and sat in the Court of Petty Sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 1955, NSW magistrates have been required to hold legal qualifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bill will also amend the Judicial Officers Act 1986<\/em> to reflect the new titles while amendments to the Constitution Act 1902<\/em> will ensure protections to safeguard the independence and integrity of magistrates continue to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NSW will join the Northern Territory\u2019s Local Court and Federal Circuit Court of Australia where the title of magistrate has been changed to judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Attorney General Michael Daley said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis important change is not just about a name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s about ensuring the skill and contributions of judicial officers in the Local Court are properly recognised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Local Court is Australia\u2019s busiest jurisdiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt makes more than 90 per cent of all judicial decisions in NSW and the nature of its work is becoming increasingly complex.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The NSW Government will today introduce legislation allowing Local Court magistrates to be known as judges to better reflect the importance of work done in this jurisdiction. Amendments to the Local Court Act 2007 will change the title of judicial officers including Chief Magistrate, Deputy Chief Magistrate, Children\u2019s Magistrate, Chief Industrial Magistrate, Industrial Magistrate and Acting Magistrate. … Continue reading “Legislation introduced allowing magistrates to be known as judges”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34941,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34940\/revisions\/34941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}