Australian Law Reform Commission is an independent body set up to keep the law of Australia under review and recommend necessary reforms to improve, simplify and update.
As well, the ALRC can ensure that different perspectives are heard and that reform proposals are not only tailored to the voices of officials and powerful interest groups but also respond to the needs for lawreform as viewed by consumers and ordinary citizens.
The willingness of the ALRC Commissioners to engage, through the media, in consultation with the general public was an important innovation in lawreform technique pioneered by the ALRC.
When the ALRC was established in 1975 it was natural that the long-standing institutions such as the courts, the departments of state, the universities and elsewhere should view the Commission with a measure of caution, even suspicion.
The AustralianLawReformCommissions recently published review of the federal civil justice system [1], which is a notable contribution to modern studies of practical issues relating to the administration of justice, needs to be understood in a wider context.One of the purposes of this Conference is to assist such an understanding.
Viewed in the Australian context, the first thing to be noted about ALRC 89 is that its subject, the federal civil justice system, is an important, but also a relatively new, and in some respects distinctive, part of the Australian justice system.
Case management is now accepted practice throughout Australian courts.Judicial officers are no longer willing to leave it to the parties and their lawyers to decide the pace at which cases will be made ready for trial, and they acknowledge, within limits, a responsibility to intervene, where necessary and appropriate, in the progress of cases.
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