Letter to Tasmanian Times – Judge slams fee for Justice
At the Australian Lawyers Alliance (Lawyers for the People) Conference held in late October at the Wrest Point Casino Mr Justice Estcourt of the Tasmanian Supreme Court delivered an important paper opposing the access to justice recommendations contained in the Productivity Commission Report.
The Productivity Commission recommended that Courts should recover fees on a user-pays principle.
That would probably quadruple the existing fees and make it too expensive for ordinary citizens to approach the Courts to obtain justice.
Mr Justice Estcourt pointed out that, that recommendation was fundamentally misconceived because the provision of Courts where people can obtain redress for their disputes is a core function of government.
The maintenance of law and order in a community includes the important function of allowing citizens to approach the Court and have their disputes heard and decided by a respected impartial group of Judges and Magistrates.
It is important to maintain the respect for those Judges and Magistrates by the people and if that respect is lost society tends to fall into disorder and anarchy.
If people can’t afford to take their disputes to Court they will start to resort to self-help with pick axe handles and guns, and law and order will break down.
Therefore it is the taxpayer who must fund the Courts and make sure that people can afford to approach them by not only insuring their fees are low but also by providing proper legal aid to settle civil disputes.
Under the Whitlam Government in the 1970’s access to justice was never more easily obtained because the Legal Aid system paid lawyers 80% of their normal fee and it applied to civil disputes that had merit and were important enough to take to Court.
But a series of conservative Liberal/National Party Governments whittled away the monies paid to Legal Aid so now it is essentially only available to welfare recipients in Family Court cases and to criminals.
Legal Aid has been reduced to a shadow of itself and people are denied access to justice because they can’t afford lawyers.
If they have to pay expensive Court fees then only multi-millionaires and wealthy corporations will have access to justice.
The Productivity Commission is a bastion of right-wing economists and accountants.
These are people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
They fail to understand that the provision of justice and an accessible fair and respected system of Law Courts is a core function of Government and it is what maintains respect for the rule of law and ensures the stability of society.
Yours Faithfully,
John Green LL.B
Committee Member
ALA Tasmanian Branch
Lawyers for the People
