Notice to the profession

Listing trials during Full Court and Appellate sitting periods

2 August 2024

As the Court announced in February 2024, in 2025 the Court is moving to three Full Court and Appellate sitting periods over the months of March, August and November.

This notice explains how the Court will approach requests to list trials in the original jurisdiction during Full Court and Appellate sitting periods, with a view to maintaining the Court's impressive record in listing matters for appeal efficiently.

The listings for each Full Court and Appellate  sitting period will ordinarily be finalised around one week after the end of the immediately preceding Full Court and Appellate sitting period (e.g. one week after March 2025 for the August 2025 Full Court period).

To ensure appropriate availability of judges and the legal profession for Full Court and appellate work in these three months, prior to the finalisation of listings for a particular Full Court and Appellate sitting period, judges will be asked not to list trials for hearing during any Full Court and Appellate sitting period unless this is unavoidable and the Chief Justice has been notified by the respective judge.

Correspondingly, practitioners should not seek to have trials listed during any Full Court and Appellate sitting period, unless they consider they can justify the proposed listing as unavoidable.

In considering whether a trial listing during a Full Court and Appellate sitting period is unavoidable:

• unavailability of counsel at other times is unlikely to be sufficient justification;
• any reasons why counsel is said to be unavailable at other times may need to be set out in detail;
• why other counsel cannot be briefed may need to be explained in detail; and
• the duration of the trial will be considered, in particular whether the trial is to be fixed for at least two months' duration.

After the listings for a particular Full Court and Appellate sitting period are finalised, trials or other original jurisdiction hearings may be listed for hearing around Full Court commitments, at the discretion of an individual judge.

D S Mortimer
Chief Justice
1 August 2024