Annual report [1997-98] - Family Court of Australia

The Family Court of Australia – annual report 1997-98
Sydney (one). Other delays giving rise to complaints involved the handing down of judgements
(eight), the other party manipulating the system to induce delays and circuits.
■ Law itself
Several complaints concerned sections of the Family Law Act 1975. Three complaints concerned
s66k(5), 100Aand s79A. Seven complaints alleged that the Act was biased against
males or females, unrepresented parties and non-residential parents.
■ Fees
Most of the complaints about fees concerned the cost of solicitors.
■ Proceedings
This category includes complaints about what happened during Court proceedings. This
financial year, 69 complaints were included in this field. Allegations of perjury produced
the greatest concern. Many of the complaints received about ‘proceedings’ revealed that
complainants did not understand what was happening to their application when in Court.
Twelve letters contained requests for advice on how to bring matters before the Court. In
10 of the letters the writers said they did not follow or understand the proceedings.
■ Behaviour
Complaints recorded in this category report behaviour allegedly exhibited by Court staff or
members of the judiciary. Where a complaint is about an identifiable staff member the officer
is made aware of the terms of the complaint and given an opportunity to comment. The
Court received 70 complaints about behaviour. Of these, 66 referred to particular sections
of the Court. Court counsellors (16), member of the judiciary (12) and registrars (7) were
the focus of most complaints about behaviour. Five of the 16 complaints about counsellors
alleged that the services received were unprofessional while four complainants thought the
counsellor was rude. Afurther four complainants perceived the counsellor as biased. Three
believed the bias was directed against males. Similar findings can be reported for registrars.
■ Administration
The Court received 62 complaints about administration primarily related to access, filing and
security. Complaints about access predominantly involved telephone access to Brisbane,
Canberra, Sydney and Parramatta registries. The primary complaint about filing concerned
sealed orders not being received. Complaints about the Court’s security included concerns
that there is too much security and there was inadequate security.
■ Timeliness
The Court has a standard performance indicator that a final response should be provided
within two weeks of receipt of the complaint if it does not need to be referred to an area or
registry manager for a report, and four weeks if it does. With the statistics at hand it is not
possible to identify the complaints that were referred on for a report. Of the 342 complaints
registered, 247 were closed at 30 June 1998. The majority (69%) were finalised in less than
four weeks. Of these, 88 were resolved in less than one week. However, 13% took more
than 10 weeks to resolve. One complaint took 27 weeks to resolve. Fifteen complaints
received during 1997-98 remain open. At 30 June 1998, four of these had been open for
16, 17, 19 and 48 weeks. The remaining 80 complaints were not included in this statistic
as either the date received or date closed was not recorded.
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