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Legal aid held back, civil cases on hold
Legal Aid Queensland has suspended face-to-face duty lawyer services, putting the most vulnerable in society at risk, a leading criminal lawyer says.
Tony Zhang
On Wednesday, 19 March 2020, LAQ emailed practitioners about the change amid the coronavirus outbreak and it comes as Queensland Magistrate Courts adjourn all non-urgent hearings and self-represented matters for three months from Monday.
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According to former Queensland Law Society president Bill Potts, he had grave concerns for those who are most vulnerable in society who will be impacted.
“The duty solicitor scheme provides front-end advice to people who are effectively the most vulnerable and these people now can’t get timely independent legal advice,” Mr Potts said.
“The magistrates are going to have to work as hard as they can to ensure a person’s rights are not affected and they will do a good job, I have no doubt about that.”
Queensland lawyers received a document titled Brisbane Magistrates Court Guideline 2020, which contains two sections and details the new arrangements from next week and was distributed on Tuesday.
It was signed off by Chief Magistrate Judge Terry Gardiner and also covers Children’s Court proceedings.
The snooze button has already been hit on civil disputes, litigation and property and estate settlements in Queensland.
The state’s court system is scaling back operations and non-urgent proceedings such as civil action and litigation in the Magistrate’s Court will be stopped for three months from Monday.
This, according to Mr Potts, will mean some aspects of the court system will come to a “screaming halt” – even divorce settlements.
“There are a lot of people who may be waiting for a settlement, a personal injury claim or an estate claim and now they are all frozen,” he said.
“Civil matters delayed, means those who rightly need compensation to get medical assistance can’t get on with their lives.”
New changes for legal to the Magistrates Court include leave for lawyers to appear by telephone or audiovisual, while victims in police applications for domestic violence orders and parties who are legally represented parties are excused from appearing.
The guidelines are to be adopted in Magistrate Courts across the state.
“Arrangements are being put in place to respond to COVID-19 to ensure the spread of the infection is limited as far as possible and to continue to provide court services to the Queensland community,” Judge Gardiner wrote.
The correspondence contains a flowchart to govern where and when cases are to be heard in Brisbane’s Magistrates Court.
