The Magistrates Court of South Australia is announcing additional operational changes to assist the court and those appearing before it in the current health crisis.

In the coming week, all our Registries will be preparing new rosters to take effect from 6 April through until the end of July 2020.  We may need to extend this further depending on the situation at that time.

The changes are necessary to allow some of our magistrates to be quarantined and to reduce our listings.  This will in turn acknowledge that prosecuting authorities and practitioners are working with a reduced capacity and it will reduce the number of people who must travel to and then attend court.

Some lists must be vacated to protect people’s health.

Courts will continue to run overnight custody lists, bail applications, major indictable lists and Family Violence lists.

The first return and general lists will be vacated and fresh dates given to defendants who already have received a summons.

Upon written application to the Registry, defendants wishing to finalise their matters by way of guilty plea will be given a date and time.

Trials that are listed will be checked to see if there are compelling reasons requiring their removal from the list otherwise they will continue to run where possible.

The matters vacated from general lists in April will be moved into July. May will go into August and June into September.  Parties will be given a new date and advised to check the CAA internet site for further information in case their matters need to be further adjourned.

Circuit arrangements for courts will be significantly varied with many lists being conducted by AVL from a hub court.

Work is well underway to improve our ability to hear matters remotely. Practitioners are reminded of their ability to appear by telephone.

Our Registries are under tremendous pressure to process the large volume of requests and process administrative adjournments. I want to acknowledge the considerable efforts of the court and all our staff at this very difficult time. We thank our stakeholders and court users for their patience and understanding.

Hopefully, these changes will enable us to continue performing core services.

 

Judge Mary-Louise Hribal
Chief Magistrate

Enquiries: 8204 2444 or email enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au
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