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Box 6.11
Judicial officers
The ‘judicial officers’ indicator is a simple way of representing resources (that is, the
number of officers who can make enforceable orders of the court). It also indicates
access to the judicial system.
For the purposes of this chapter, the definition of a judicial officer includes:
• judges
• magistrates
• masters
• coroners
• judicial registrars
• all other officers who, following argument and giving of evidence, make enforceable
orders of the court.
Numbers are expressed in full time equivalent terms and based on the proportion of
time spent on judicial functions. They are also presented in comparison to the
population of each jurisdiction.
A higher proportion of judicial officers in the population indicates potentially greater
access to the judicial system.
The number of full time equivalent judicial officers for each court level is outlined
in table 6.15. As would be expected, the number of judicial officers is related to the
size of the jurisdiction. In all State and Territory jurisdictions with a three-tier
system, there were more judicial officers in the magistrates courts than in the
district/county courts, and more officers in the district/county courts than in the
supreme courts (except in WA).
The number of judicial officers can be viewed in the context of the population in
each jurisdiction. As a result, table 6.16 shows the number of judicial officers per
100 000 people. For the supreme courts, the rate ranged from 4.0 judicial officers
per 100 000 people in the NT to 0.6 in Queensland. In the district courts, it ranged
from 1.3 per 100 000 in both WA and SA to 0.8 in Queensland. In the magistrates
courts, it ranged from 6.1 in the NT to 1.7 in NSW (table 6.16).
6.34 REPORT ON
GOVERNMENT
SERVICES 2005