MAGISTRATES will start sitting on weekends in an unprecedented move as Victoria’s prison overcrowding crisis worsens. Chief Magistrate Peter Lauristen announced today Melbourne’s Magistrates’ Court would sit on Saturdays and Sundays starting this week.
The court will primarily hear applications for bail or remand on the weekend sittings.
If successful the trial initiative, which will see the court turned into a seven-day a week operation for the first time, could extend until October 2014.
A magistrate will be available to hear remands and applications from the previous evening or during the day on a Saturday and Sunday between 10am and 4pm.
In a statement released to the media, Mr Lauristen said the pilot program would involve matters arising from Melbourne and suburban locations.
“Where an accused appears in court and is remanded in custody by the magistrate, the accused may be remanded to a date other than a Monday,” he said.
“This will allow the court to distribute its caseload across the week and bring the accused into timely contact with support services, where necessary.
“Where the accused is from a suburban location outside the CBD and is further remanded, they will be remanded back to the proper venue of the court in the suburbs.”
Mr Lauristen said the weekend sittings were intended to improve the operations of the magistrates’ court at Melbourne and reduce the pressure of cases listed on Monday mornings at Melbourne and suburban courts.
“Weekend sittings will also enable accused, being held in custody, to be brought before the court at the earliest time,” he said.
Frustrated magistrates have been ordering costs against Corrections Victoria and encouraging lawyers to make applications in the Supreme Court as the number of prisoners not being brought to court has skyrocketed in recent weeks, wreaking havoc on court scheduling.
Prisoners are not being brought to court for important court hearings – including bail applications and committal hearings – because holding cells at magistrates’ courts are already full.
There have also been reports of prisoners waiting in prison vans until other prisoners are released on bail.
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