In Recommendation 1 the Committee suggests that the High Court adopt a written complaint handling policy (which would be made public). The recommended timeframe for action is within 1 month of the tabling of the Committee's report.
As its second recommendation the committee suggests that all federal courts publish quarterly complaint-handling summaries on their websites. The summaries would record the number of complaints received, the date each complaint was received, the nature of the complaint, the date on which it was resolved and an indication of any action taken in response to the complaint. No personal details of the complainant or judicial officer would be identifiable.
In dealing with the contentious matter of judicial appointments (perhaps one of the more astute senators or their minders has been reading comments by Bede Harris) the committee recommends that when appointment of a federal judicial officer is announced the Attorney-General should publish the number of nominations and applications for each vacancy. If the government or department prepared a short-list of candidates the number of people on that list should also be made public.
Under recommendation 4 the committee suggests that -
the process for appointments to the High Court should be principled and transparent. The committee recommends that the Attorney-General should adopt a process that includes advertising vacancies widely and should confirm that selection is based on merit and should detail the selection criteria that constitute merit for appointment to the High Court.It goes on to recommend that all jurisdictions set a nationally consistent compulsory retirement age for judicial officers, and encourages each jurisdiction to implement that standard within the next four years. At the next Commonwealth referendum section 72 of the Constitution should be amended to provide that federal judicial officers are appointed until an age fixed by Parliament.
It also recommends that by 30 June 2010 the Attorney-General develop and implement a protocol that provides "guidelines to federal courts for the appropriate use of short and long term part-time working arrangements for judicial officers", with that protocol being discussed at the first meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys‑General after 30 June 2010.
The committee recommends that the Commonwealth government establish a federal judicial commission, modelled on the Judicial Commission of New South Wales. The new body would have three functions: judicial education, complaints handling and assisting courts to achieve consistency in sentencing. Functions of the National Judicial College of Australia would be incorporated into the new judicial commission.
In Recommendation 16 the committee recommends that by 30 June 2010 the government -
* implement a federal process enabling it to establish an ad hoc tribunal when one is needed to investigate complaints of judicial misconduct or incapacity;
* establish guidelines for the investigation of less serious misconduct or incapacity issues; and
* implement the Family Court and Federal Magistrates Court proposal for an oversight committee.
