Worth Richard: Judicial Matters Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Worth Richard: Judicial Matters Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:12885] 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 I have made a number of points about the Judicial Matters Bill in the course of this Committee stage to indicate on behalf of National how strongly we feel against this legislation. We see this bill as being very significant in constitutional terms and as being an incredible erosion of the rights that Parliament has had for a long time in respect of the removal of judges. The plans for the removal of judges have been replaced by a bureaucratic process that is clearly capable of manipulation and politicisation. I do not want to cover those issues again. Instead I would like to deal with a very specific provision in Part 2 relating to the number of judges. That issue caused debate in the Justice and Electoral Committee and I think the debate was wholly warranted. I was reminded of that today and I will burden the Committee with an observation. 
At the Regulations Review Committee Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the Clerk of the House talked to us about issues relating to processes in the House that could be substantially altered to improve democracy in the Chamber. The issue that taxed us related to the so-called affirmative resolution procedure. That is a shortcut procedure that falls short of the normal parliamentary process and it was proposed in this bill in order to ramp up the number of judges. Sir Geoffrey Palmer whose politics are not my politics but whose intellect I assuredly admire— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: It’s not yours either. 
RICHARD WORTH 
:—drew attention to the dangers of the affirmative resolution procedure. I cannot really let that intervention from the Minister in the chair go unanswered. I hope that she will make a substantive contribution to this debate but I doubt whether she will. An interesting aspect of this debate—which involves I think high constitutional principle—is that the Government has been strangely silent and I would say un-strangely ashamed. It did the Minister in the chair no credit to interject in the way she did but it was not unexpected. 
I want to go on to the issue of judicial numbers. Sir Geoffrey Palmer—whom this Minister may not respect but I assuredly do—said that the use of the affirmative resolution procedure posed the possibility of judicial packing. Through the delegated procedures of legislation the Attorney-General would have the ability to effectively stack the court in a way that reflects judges with a particular bias right through the whole court structure. It is really important that judges show no favour and no bias. In fact they take that oath. Clauses 41 and 51 increase the number of judges by providing for a really huge hike in the number of District Court judges—they are to go from 123 to 140—and for the number of High Court judges to be increased from 37 to 55. 
I raise for serious debate and consideration the issue that we have too many judges. We should look at better methods of judicial resourcing and at improved case management strategies. Simply increasing the number of judges is not the way to achieve the desired outcome in any event. The desired outcome is obviously access to justice for all. It has been truly said that the courts are open to everyone like the Ritz Hotel. We need to be utterly committed to fair process which is absent.