Survey of Australia's Federal Courts: Judicial Views of Remote Proceedings Summary of Findings

Abstract

The aim of this project was to obtain a picture of the experiences and views of judicial officers who had rapidly transitioned to undertaking hearings and trials ‘remotely’ due to the COVID-19 pandemic, by undertaking a survey of judges of the Federal Courts: the Federal Court of Australia, the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia (FCC).

The survey sought to understand the impact on judges and their work, as well as to collect some baseline information on the technology being used and how the courtroom process was modified for remote proceedings. It sought to elicit where judicial officers perceived that problems had arisen, how they were ensuring that procedural fairness was afforded, open justice provided or compromised, and how they saw their role as impartial adjudicator to be changed and/or made more or less difficult, as a result.

The three Federal Courts were approached and invited to take part in the survey. Agreement was received from the Chief Justice of the Federal Court, the Hon James Allsop AO, and the Chief Justice of the Family Court and of the Federal Circuit Court, the Hon William Alstergren QC, to circulate the survey invitation to judicial officers. Ethics approval was applied for and obtained from the UNSW Human Research Ethics Committee (HC200454) in June 2020. This included the requirement that participants not be individually identified. The courts then circulated the invitation to all judges.

An invitation to complete the survey was circulated at the end of June, and 40 responses were received from ~150 judicial officers, an overall response rate of ~33%. This report sets out in summary the key findings from the survey.