Magistrate Court

 

Visited the Melbourne Magistrates Court today to sit in on some hearings as I have to write a couple of court reports.

For three separate cases, the prosectors (mostly Vic Police) mucked up their paper work. Certain documents were missing, others were still waiting to be faxed. In one case, the register on the floor had shut the counter and no documents could be retrieved. The magistrate was quite frustrated and I was a little taken aback as well. I mean honestly, we’re dealing with a person’s innocence or guilt here, you would think there would be a bit more vigilance.

Apart from that, what astounded me was also the reliance on paper documents as opposed to digital documents in the judicial system. I can see the arguments for this; greater accountability, lesser risk of documents being lost or systems being hacked. But all the proceedings were very slow and the magistrate himself had a laptop.

Curious.