The Family Court of Australia is to be amalgamated with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia to help families save time and costs in family law disputes.
Announced by Attorney-General, Christian Porter, the merger is to take place from 1 January 2019 and the resulting entity will be known as the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCA).
Mr Porter said a new Family Law Appeal Division in the Federal Court of Australia would also be established to hear all appeals in family law matters.
“This single new court, the FCFCA, will help Australian families resolve their disputes faster by improving the efficiency of the existing split family law system, reducing the backlog of matters before the family law courts,” Mr Porter said.
“The purpose of the reform is to ensure Australian families experience shorter waiting times, and a reduction in the potential for conflict caused by prolonged and acrimonious family disputes.”
He said the new court would be divided into two divisions, the first comprising the existing judges of the Family Court of Australia and dealing only with family law matters.
Division two would comprise the existing judges of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and deal with family law matters and general federal law matters.
Mr Porter said that despite the number of cases filed each year over the past five years remaining relatively static, the number of family law matters awaiting resolution had grown from 17,200 to 21,000.
“The median time taken to reach trial has grown in both courts, from 10.8 months to 15.2 months in the Federal Circuit Court and from 11.5 months to 17 months in the Family Court,” he said.
“It is estimated that these reforms will improve the efficiency of the federal family law system by up to a third, with the potential in time to allow up to an extra 8,000 cases to be resolved each and every year.”
The changes prompted the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) to point out they will be the fifth major restructure of the courts in a decade.
Deputy National President of the CPSU, Rupert Evans said that each of the shake-ups had resulted in job cuts.
“That means there are fewer staff to deal with an ever growing workload,” Mr Evans said.
A five-page factsheet setting out the structural reform of the courts prepared by the Attorney-General’s Department can be can be accessed at this PS News link.
