Soapbox Viewpoint: Should There Be A Specialised Court for Handling Domestic Violence Matters?

Queensland District Court Judge, Her Honour Judge Kingham, spoke at a Domestic Violence Forum hosted by QUT this past week and advocated that an option for handling the Domestic Violence epidemic in Australia, is the establishment of a specialised Court system.

We support the notion.

Given that family law matters are typically a forum where Domestic Violence matters are the subject of a substantial airing in the determination of disputes in the Family Law Courts, and given that the Federal Parliament is seeking to unify the approach to the issue nationwide, it seems to us that it is time to devote resources to the Family Law Courts to be the specialised Court.

Clearly, without seeking to compartmentalise the abilities of Judges, Magistrates and Judicial Registrars of the Magistrates and Local Courts, the Family Law Courts are already specialised, already delving very deeply into what sort of violence has occurred and the reach of it in terms of impacting families, surely there is sense in seeking a massive inflow of resources and referral of the power to determine these issues, excepting criminal prosecutions, to the Family Law Courts once and for all.

Be clear though, if the referral happens, the sort of resources the Court would need would be significant.

However, in the long term, the cost of litigation for parties to family law proceedings would diminish as a result of not having to conduct litigation in more than one place.