The chief justice, Tim Carmody, said mistakes by Auscript – a Liberal national party donor which won a contract to transcribe hearings in 2012 – were delaying appeal decisions and creating more work for judges.
The judge’s criticism – contained in the supreme court’s annual report 2013-14 tabled in parliament on 19 December – followed state opposition claims that the cost of court transcripts had jumped by 73% after privatisation.
The attorney general, Jarrod Bleijie, told parliament a month before the report that the court of appeal “no longer experiences delays in the production of transcripts”.
Carmody said it was pleasing the courts had experienced no major delays in receiving transcripts for appeal cases, “unlike last year”.
“The quality of the transcripts, however, remains variable, and like last year is often poor,” he said. “Sometimes matters are transcribed incorrectly or not at all. Inappropriate paragraphing is common.
"When the accuracy of a portion of transcript is critical to a ground of appeal, it is often necessary for the judges to check the transcript against the original recording.
“Transcripts of appeal hearings are sometimes delivered outside the timelines time set by Auscript. These manifest transcript problems can delay the timely delivery of judgments.”
Bleijie told parliament in November the service saved taxpayers $3.6m last financial year.
The government has also dismissed any suggestion that $12,000 in donations to the LNP – by Auscript, its chief executive Peter Wyatt and a related company the year it won the contract – played any role amid an “independent, robust and transparent” tender.
No comments:
Post a Comment