Networked Knowledge - Media Report

This version of the report has been prepared by: Dr Robert N Moles
Underlining where it occurs is for editorial emphasis]

List of Australian, UK and USA miscarriage of justice cases
Article on Australian miscarriage of justice cases
Article on UK miscarriage of justice cases
Article on USA miscarriage of justice cases

On 29 January 2005 Sean Fewster of The Advertiser reported “Courts `lag behind' rest of the nation”.

He said South Australia's courts are the worst-performing in the nation, with figures showing none of the state's jurisdictions can dispose of its case load within a year. Despite having the third-highest number of judges in Australia and a $2.7 million increase in spending, the Supreme, District and Magistrates courts were unable to clear their 2003-04 case loads. A report by the Productivity Commission ranks SA's Supreme Court as having the lowest ``clearance rate'' in the country for the second year running, noting it added to its existing backlog of cases.

A clearance rate of 100 indicates that, within 12 months, a court finished as many cases as were lodged with its registry. A rate higher than 100 means a court is reducing case load and a rate below 100 means a backlog of cases is mounting. SA's rates were 66.7 for the Supreme Court, 89.2 for the District Court and 74.5 for the Magistrates Court. Chief Justice John Doyle conceded yesterday the Supreme Court's handling of criminal cases ``is slipping''. However, he said, clearance rate was not ``all-important'', as other statistics showed the courts' performance was ``satisfactory'' in most areas and ``best around the country'' in others. ``What the clearance ratio is really telling you is whether you are heading for trouble, staying steady or actually diminishing your backlog,'' Chief Justice Doyle said. ``I accept that our criminal case performance is slipping and our backlog is increasing (but) in other areas we are the quickest or at least as good as other states.''

The commission's report also showed the state's backlog of Supreme Court civil matters was the lowest in the country, while there was no backlog of civil appeal cases. Chief Justice Doyle said that figure was more indicative of the system's efficiency, while some of the commission's data contained ``errors''. He said many factors - more lodgements, the increasing length of trials and the recent spate of ``mega cases'' such as the Snowtown bodies-in-the-barrels trials - contributed to the backlog in the criminal courts. ``Our performance is not disastrous but there is an adverse trend that we have not been able to arrest,'' Chief Justice Doyle said. ``At the moment, we are not sure exactly how to arrest the trend because we're not confident enough to say which factor is the main contributor (to backlog).”

Chief Justice Doyle said he believed the system was ``working as hard as it can''. ``There is room for improvement, though, and our task is to make those improvements in ways that will actually result in cases being handled more efficiently,'' he said. ``There are limits to what you can do without increasing the firepower of the system.'' A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Michael Atkinson agreed, saying the Government ``had been aware of the backlog of cases'' and had secured extra funds to try to combat the problem.

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