Background

3.1 The Court Bill provides that a person is qualified to be appointed a judge of the court if he or she is a judge of the District Court, a barrister of not less than five years’ standing or a solicitor of not less than seven years’ standing, or has been on the roll of barristers or on the roll of solicitors for a continuous aggregate period of not less than seven years.¹

3.2 This provision assimilates the qualifications for appointment as a judge of the Compensation Court to the qualifications for appointment as a judge of the District Court and, so far as barristers and solicitors are concerned, to those applicable for appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court.²

3.3 Historically, the qualifications for appointment as a member of the Commission have been stricter than those for appointment to the District Court. The Act presently provides that a person is qualified for appointment as a member of the Commission if he or she is a District Court judge or a practising barrister of not less than five years’ standing or a practising solicitor of not less than seven years’ standing.³ There was previously a practising requirement in relation to the District Court,⁴ removed by amendment in 1982,⁵ that the appointee should have been in practice or should have held some judicial or legal office under the Crown within the two years immediately preceeding his or her appointment. This was less stringent than the present requirement for appointment to the Commission that the appointee should have been in practice for the whole of the qualifying period.

Submissions

3.4 The Chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Commission⁶ and also the Law Society of New South Wales,⁷ have, in their respective submissions, argued for the retention of the requirement that a judge of the Compensation Court, when appointed from the profession, should have been a practising barrister or solicitor for the full qualifying period. The reason advanced in support of this view is that the experience of legal work derived from practice as a barrister or solicitor is a necessary qualification for the requirements of judicial office.

Issues Involved

3.5 The views which have been expressed appear to be inconsistent with the policy reflected in the present qualifications for appointment both to the Supreme Court and to the District Court as we have indicated. There is a strong case to be made for consistency in the qualifications for judicial office among the various courts. Furthermore, judges of the Commission and of the District Court have always enjoyed equal status and there is no reason for stricter requirements for appointment to the Compensation Court compared with those for appointment to the District Court insofar as the nature of the work is concerned. in practice, appointments would usually be made from the ranks of practising barristers or solicitors, but there may be circumstances in which a person with other relevant experience would be a suitable candidate for judicial appointment.

Summary

3.6 Accordingly, we recommend that the qualifications for a judge of the court should be as proposed by the Court Bill.

FOOTNOTES

1. Court Bill, cl.8(2).

2. District Court Act, 1973, s.(2), and Supreme Court Act, 1970, s.26(2), (3).

3. The Act, s.31(2).

4. District Court Act, 1973, s.13(3).

5. District Court (Amendment) Act, 1982, Schedule 2(2).

6. Schedule: Item 18.

7. Schedule: Item 27.