Retiring magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg says justice system letting Victorians down
One of Victoria’s top judicial figures has savaged Victoria’s justice system, saying it’s more focused on turnover than quality. Charlie Rozencwajg, on the day he retires, reveals why he thinks our magistrates’ courts are buckling.
Law & Order
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One of Victoria’s most senior judicial figures says magistrates’ courts are buckling under the strain of inadequate resourcing and are out-of-date.
Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg retires today after 15 years and says the justice system is letting Victorians down.
“It needs an overhaul, it does, there’s no doubt about it,” Mr Rozencwajg told the Herald Sun.
“I’m sad to say this but for the first time I’m seeing a system of justice that I’ve always been proud of, and people are falling through the cracks.
“Our problem is churn. We’ve got to focus on quality. We’re not a bloody supermarket, with turnover and turnover.”
Mr Rozencwajg, who served as the court’s criminal division supervisor for more than a decade, said growing crime rates, infrastructure, kneejerk legislation and extra night court and weekend court sittings were among factors contributing to a reduction in quality justice.
He also said a lack of experienced lawyers and magistrates was having a significant impact.
“Half my time is spent doing the job of the practitioners,” he said.
“In earlier days if you didn’t do your job, your client got whacked. I’ve seen what happens when people don’t do their job and it’s not fair if you’ve got a poor legal representative.”
He said some magistrates were being put under enormous strain because of their inexperience.
“Criminal law is something that you can only get after years of experience, and you get a gut feeling, you can’t get that gut feeling from a book.
“A lot of people get appointed, their experience in the criminal law is minimal, and they can have difficulty making a decision. It’s a problem.
“They get put under a lot of pressure they shouldn’t be under.”
Mr Rozencwajg is known around the court for his acerbic wit and no nonsense handling of cases.
Lawyers who appear before him unprepared are rarely met with compassion and he readily admits he is “no pin-up boy with practitioners”.
“I don’t rubber stamp things. I inquire, I don’t leave myself at the mercy of the bar table,” he said.
But outgoing chief magistrate Peter Lauritsen has hit back at the scathing assessment of the court by Mr Rozencwajg.
“I have complete confidence in the quality and competence of the magistrates and the process by which they are appointed,” he said.
“The views expressed by Magistrate Rozencwajg are not shared by me nor, I believe, the vast majority of my judicial colleagues.”
Mr Rozencwajg was appointed to the court in 2004 after 18 years at the Victorian Bar.
In that time a who’s who of Melbourne’s criminal world and some of the city’s biggest celebrity names have passed before him including rogue MPs Craig Thomson and Geoff Shaw, killer Sean Price, TV personality Sam Newman and jockey Danny Nikolic.
In 2011 he famously sentenced Derryn Hinch to home detention.
“I deliberately, maybe even maliciously, set him up in terms of the irony given his political stance on suspended sentences in that here he was asking for one. And he acknowledged the irony,” Mr Rozencwajg joked yesterday.
But he said the crisis plaguing Victoria’s magistrates courts was no laughing matter.
He said a the court was dealing with a sharp increase in its caseload, including more serious crimes, but that wasn’t matched by the number of magistrates.
Specialist court programs and lists had also had a significant impact on court resources, he said.
He said the specialist courts, which delivered benefits to a limited number of people who qualified for them, highlighted the unsatisfactory infrastructure of the court.
Mr Rozencwajg said the only way that could be addressed was with significant government investment, including funding for additional magistrates and custody courtrooms, and warned the court would soon begin to sink under the weight of increasing caseloads.
He said moves to try and ease the court’s workload, like the introduction of night court, weekend court, and the now regular practice of accused appearing in court via videolink had been failures.
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He slammed the videolink changes describing legislation regulating its use as “pathetic”.
“It was rushed through as a knee-jerk reaction and from my perspective its counter productive and creates multiple court events.”
Mr Rozencwajg said this week’s appointment of County Court Judge Lisa Hannan as the next chief magistrate was a good move in the overhauling the court.
“She’s been a good judge, she’s been a good magistrate, she understands the magistrates court and how it works,” he said.
Mr Rozencwajg will remain at the court as a reserve magistrate.