May 2025 marked eight months since the launch of District Court Practice Direction 3 of 2024 with the introduction of best practice principles for all sexual offence proceedings in Queensland (Part A) and protocol underpinning the Sexual Violence (SV) Case Management Pilot in the Brisbane and Ipswich District Courts (Part B).
A call to action
In 2022, the second report of the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce Hear Her Voice – Report Two – Women and girls’ experiences across the criminal justice system provided the catalyst for change, making several recommendations to improve the way sexual offence proceedings are managed in the District Court of Queensland.
The Taskforce identified that sexual offence cases take significantly longer to resolve relative to other cases and that ‘long delays in trial proceedings and multiple adjournments are a major factor in increasing the trauma of the trial process for victim-survivors.1 These findings are supported by Queensland Courts data that identifies sexual offence matters take approximately twice as long to finalise in the District Court relative to other offence types in Queensland.
The Taskforce called on the Chief Judge, in consultation with key stakeholders, to implement improved case management to ‘increase efficiency; reduce the number of court appearances and the number of matters that unnecessarily progress to hearing; and improve the effectiveness and quality of responses to victim and witnesses’2. It was recommended that any process adopted by the District Court should incorporate specialist lists, case management, and mediated case conferencing.
Queensland Courts response
In 2023, a project team was established in the Supreme District and Land Courts Service within the Department of Justice, to support the Chief Judge to respond to the Taskforce’s recommendations. A multi-agency working group with senior representatives of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Queensland Law Society, Bar Association Queensland, Legal Aid Queensland, Victims Assist Queensland, Department of Premier and Cabinet, First Nations Justice Office, and the Office of the Interim Victims Commissioner3, was formed to provide strategic and operational advice to inform the development of the sexual violence case management model.
The project team led key work to inform the policy design of an improved case management approach suitable for the Queensland context. This included in-depth consultations with a cross-section of the judiciary, legal practitioners, registry staff and support service providers; the commissioning of a literature review into opportunities for improved management of sexual offence matters in the higher courts; and national and international cross-jurisdictional analysis to understand existing practices. Consultations largely reinforced the findings of the Taskforce in relation to the causes of delay.
The policy design phase culminated in the development of an options paper for the consideration of the Chief Judge and working group. The group endorsed the recommendation of a three-year Sexual Violence Case Management Pilot in the Brisbane and Ipswich District Courts, with a program evaluation within three-years. The pilot commenced 2 September 2024.
Best practice and case management
The Queensland SV Case Management Pilot reflects what the academic literature and cross-jurisdictional analysis identified as best practice. A recent literature review by the Australian Institute of Judicial Administrators (AIJA)4 highlights best practice measures that embody a trauma-informed approach to addressing the needs of people impacted by sexual violence including:
- specialist training for judiciary, court staff, prosecutors and defence counsel;
- provision of information and communication in a trauma informed and timely manner;
- consideration of safety needs;
- reduction of delays in finalising proceedings through effective case scheduling; and
- measures to support the giving of evidence.
The AIJA review recognises that a specialist approach is more than court scheduling to reduce delay and requires a holistic consideration of how the court process may be enhanced to support people harmed by sexual violence. In addition to improved case management, the SV Case Management Pilot provides a touch point for agencies and services through local operational working groups led by the courts, to identify opportunities to enhance service delivery and better support complainant and witness needs. The pilot also builds trauma-informed knowledge and practice among registry staff and the judiciary and leverages broader legislative reforms to improve SV proceedings.
A literature review by Quilter et al. (2023)5 identifies key features of effective case management including:
- clear and predictable court schedules;
- case review hearings where pre-trial issues are raised, evidence is reviewed and matters of interpreters, support persons and modes of evidence are discussed;
- early dialogue between prosecutors and defence counsel so that issues can be identified (case conferencing);
- the use of forms to support judicial review of case progression;
- prescribed timeframes and close monitoring of compliance with timeframes;
- a trial call over before the judge who will preside at the trial, to ensure the trial is ready to proceed; and
- fixing firm trial dates at the earliest opportunity.
The SV Case Management Pilot incorporates these key features within the case management protocol and promotes a change in practice to encourage timely disclosure, early negotiations between parties, forms to facilitate the provision of information to the court and prescribed timeframes and scheduling of court events including the requirement to list a trial within eight months of indictment presentation.
In Australia, jurisdictions generally have a case management framework that applies to all criminal matters, not just sexual violence matters. Queensland’s district court is the first to proactively case manage SV proceedings in Australia. Case management in all jurisdictions involves ‘front-end loading’ in which parties seek to turn their minds to, and familiarise themselves with, pre-trial issues early in proceedings, at or shortly after indictment presentation. In addition, both judicial leadership and engagement between legal stakeholders and the court is generally seen as integral to effective case management practices.
However, there are variations in approaches across jurisdictions including the degree of judicial involvement in case conferencing, the role and use of case managers or court coordinators, the use of stakeholder reference groups and the fixing of trial listing dates. For example, in New South Wales, an SV Case List requires the early involvement of counsel and the completion of case management forms, but there are no fixed listing dates or case managers to coordinate proceedings. In Victoria, a judge presides over case conference hearings for all criminal matters with a view to facilitating resolution discussions and narrowing the issues in dispute, consistent with the role of the Queensland Case Conference Registrar.
The Queensland SV case management model draws heavily on the New Zealand Sexual Violence Case Pilot which operated in the Auckland and Whangarei District Courts. The evaluation of the pilot 6 identified the critical role of the dedicated SV case managers who managed files from election of trial to finalisation and contributed significantly to the early identification of factors that may cause delay. In addition, stakeholders viewed the fixing of trial dates as the single most important and influential change to the standard trial process.
In Queensland, SV Case Managers provide a first point of contact for parties to resolve listing and other pre-trial issues, prepare summaries to support the judges to facilitate matter progression and proactively manage delays, and work with stakeholders to facilitate the safety and needs of court users whilst at court.
An independent process and outcomes evaluation of the SV Case Management Pilot is expected to be delivered in December 2026.
Further information
More information about the Queensland District Court SV Case Management Pilot is available on the Queensland Courts website. This includes links to the Practice Direction, forms, frequently asked questions, and a link to the information session held in August 2024.
The program team welcomes feedback about the operation of the pilot to inform continuous improvement and the program evaluation. You may submit feedback anonymously by completing the online Interim Feedback Form. Feedback is also encouraged from defence barristers and solicitors who wish to provide information about cost and time impacts via the Cost and Time Tracking Questionnaire.
Footnotes
1 Queensland Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce Hear her voice – Report two – Women and girls’ experiences across the criminal justice system, Volume 1, Queensland (1 July 2022) 309.
2 Ibid, 21.
3 Now Office of the Victims’ Commissioner.
4 George, A, Lowik V, Suzuki, M, & Corbett-Jarvis, N (2023) Specialist Approaches to Managing Sexual Assault Proceedings: An Integrative Review.
5 Quilter, J & McNamara, L. Literature review into opportunities for improved management of sexual violence matter in the higher courts (December 2023; unpublished).
6 Gravitas Research and Strategy Ltd, ‘Evaluation of the Sexual Violence Court Pilot’. Ministry of Justice, June 2019.
Share this article