No permanent help for magistrate

A Pilbara legal counsel has labelled a State Government decision to rule out appointing a second permanent magistrate to the Pilbara as “ill conceived”.

The Attorney-General confirmed a fly-in, fly-out magistrate will instead increase their sitting hours in the Karratha court from one week each month to three weeks per month, beginning in July or August.

The ramped up presence is designed to alleviate the workload on the Pilbara’s sole permanent magistrate Deen Potter, who revealed in February he was “overworked” from presiding over more cases alone than three Kalgoorlie-based magistrates undertook together.

But speaking after the Attorney-General told the ABC they wouldn’t put a magistrate permanently into the region, Karratha legal counsel Adam Oswald said the decision had not been well planned and would do little to immediately reduce court lists.

He claimed most court listings had already been set until the end of the year and many were not scheduled in Karratha during the weeks the temporary magistrate was due to be sitting, meaning the official would be left idle.

“The (temporary) magistrate will fly in (to Karratha) and for the first three months will have no work (during) the middle week,” Mr Oswald said.

“Hearings and court lists cannot simply be changed without sufficient notice.”

Mr Oswald’s comments come after Magistrate Potter garnered vocal support earlier this year for speaking out about his heavy caseload at time when the region continued to battle with anti-social and criminal behaviour.

Mr Potter told a public forum in February an average of 9600 charges, or about 420 individual criminal cases each month, came through the Pilbara courts each year.

He said criminal court lists of 80 to 100 people a day were commonplace.

“I am tired,” he said.

“It has gone well beyond that capacity of a single magistrate, I know that I’m doing two jobs.”

The Attorney General said he and the Chief Magistrate had discussed the increased workloads in the Pilbara but told The West Australian in March the solution was to monitor the need over time rather than rush to appoint additional permanent magistrates.

Member for the Pilbara Brendon Grylls welcomed the extra support but said it seemed clear to him more resources were needed.

“I keep going back to – on the information I was given – the three magistrates in Kalgoorlie doing less of a caseload than one full-time magistrate in (the Pilbara),” he said.

“It would seem that the caseload of the Pilbara has grown to a level where they need to think about locating two full-time magistrates here.”