NSW Local Courts bars everyone but lawyers, defendants, court staff

A raft of dramatic new COVID 19 protection measures will start rolling out in NSW’s local court system.

NSW Chief Magistrate Graeme Henson.

A raft of dramatic new COVID 19 protection measures have begun rolling out in NSW’s local court system from Tuesday – including the extraordinary direction only lawyers, defendants and court staff be allowed to enter the court precinct.

The directives – the first of their kind in the country – also specify the physical attendance of defendants and prisoners in court will also be barred, unless strictly necessary.

“The Local Court is the largest trial jurisdiction in Australia with more than 330,000 criminal cases dealt with by NSW magistrates in 2019 at over 140 locations,’ NSW Chief Magistrate Judge Graeme Henson said in a statement.

Judge Henson said where possible all prisoners in custody, whether they are in jail or police stations, would appear only by audio visual link in court.

The thousands of court list appearances that pack the state’s courts every day would also now only be dealt with electronically and defendants that were not represented by a lawyer would have to communicate with the court by email.

“Defendants who are unrepresented and wish to enter a plea of guilty can notify the court by email or by post,’ Judge Henson said.

“They will not be required to attend court for the sentence unless the presiding magistrate considers the offence is serious and therefore attendance is required. “

Judge Henson said the court would be “cautious’ in dealing with hearings in the absence of a defendant and matters would be adjourned until June in there was no communication with the court.

Parties involved in domestic violence proceedings would also be barred from attending court unless they had to appear for a fixed hearing before a magistrate.

The ban also extends to coronial inquests where the NSW Coroner was currently in the process of contacting families and other witnesses.

All civil proceedings and Notices of Motion would be conducted by teleconference, but parties would have a 15 minute limit imposed to make their argument.

The extraordinary measures follow weeks of frantic behind the scenes negotiations with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Legal Aid, the Sheriff’s Office, Department of Communities and Justice, Corrective Services, NSW Health and the NSW Police Force.

It also comes after weeks of growing unease in the legal fraternity about how the local court system – which accounts for 96 per cent of all court matters across the country – is going to manage the coronavirus.

There have also been concerns about the notoriously poor hygiene in local courts, which has been exacerbated by the failure of court administrators to secure hand sanitiser supplies for courts due to the extreme shortage of supplies.

Judge Henson said the measures were critical to protect the “wellbeing of all court users” and reduce the risk of exposure to the virus in courthouses across the state.