12.
not detailed My proposals for staffing the Judiciary are because it is better that the new administration carry out its own examination. I do, nevertheless, recommend that the places of listing officers and their functions should now be defined. The following proposals for listing officers will lead to some cost but until the administration has decided how much can be achieved within existing arrangements or by redeployment it is not ascertainable.
Whatever it
is it should be set against the value of saving even a small proportion of the usable court-time which currently goes unused. The cost of presiders was discussed in a previous paragraph.
13.
Where there is a group of courts or tribunals it should be under the leadership of one judicial officer. The senior member of the staff should be the court administrator. There will be a listing officer who is both responsible to him and working under the judicial supervision of the presider. The listing officer's responsibility will cover all the lists in the group. One listing officer will be under the direction of one presider for all the lists of the Court of Appeal, another for all the lists of the High Court, another for the lists of
the District Court at Wanchai and another for the District Court in the
New Territories. The Family Court will not have a presider but does have a listing officer. There is already a good liaison between him and the judges. This can be developed. In the Labour Tribunal a listing officer should work with the Chief Presiding Officer. In the Small Claims Tribunal the structure may have to be modified because of the geographical scatter but the principle that the Chief Adjudicator directs the listing should be applied.
14.
There are no special listing officers in the Magistracies where the Principal Magistrate himself usually does the listing when he takes the pleas. I recommend that listing officers be appointed with
the
functions as same
elsewhere.
Someone other than the senicr
judicial officer should have the duty of taking daily decisions and of
maintaining a constant flow of business as the circumstances alter.
has Duty Lawyer Scheme
complained that once the Principal
The
Hagistrate has fixed a case it is "set in concrete".
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