Foreword by Chief Justice of NSW

This Review provides information of the Court’s stewardship of the resources made available to it. The primary measure of the Court’s activity must be qualitative: fidelity to the law and fairness of its processes and outcomes. This Review sets out in short summary a few of the cases decided in the year 2004. They are a small sample of the 2,000 or so separate substantive judgments delivered by the 51 judicial officers of the Court.

The Review also contains information of a quantitative kind relevant to the efficiency with which the Court deals with its caseload and the speed with which litigants have their disputes resolved.

The judicial officers and the staff of the Court take a collective pride in the substantial contribution which the Court makes to social stability and the economic prosperity of this State. Without the rule of law, administered by judges with a high level of independence, impartiality and integrity neither personal freedom nor economic progress would be possible.

Participants in the legal system, both judges and practitioners, are well aware that its efficacy depends on the high level of trust that the public has in the operations of the courts. Public confidence in the administration of justice cannot be taken for granted. It is a trust which must be continually earned so public confidence can be continually replenished.

The manner in which that trust has been earned during the course of this year has depended on the participation by members of the public in the entire process of the administration of justice, whether as parties, witnesses, or jurors. That participation cannot be adequately reflected in a Review of this character.

The full detail of the court’s contribution exists in the volume of documentation produced -encompassing tens of thousands of pages of judgments and hundreds of thousands of pages of transcript. The bald figures of filings, disposals and pending caseload upon which this Review reports cannot reflect the richness that is contained in the considerable volume of documentation which the court’s judicial officers and registrars generated in the course of the year.

Nevertheless, some indication of the contribution made by the court and the effectiveness and efficiency of its procedures can be gleaned from the Review. I am quite confident that during 2004 the Court operated at as high a level as it has ever done.