The Magistrates Research Project

Magistrates courts in Australia are the focus of a national, multi-year, empirical research project being conducted by Professor Kathy Mack and Professor Sharyn Roach Anleu of Flinders University, in collaboration with all Australian magistrates and local courts and the Association of Australian Magistrates (AAM). Financial support is provided by the Australian Research Council (ARC), with further financial and practical support from the Association of Australian Magistrates, all Magistrates/Local courts, and the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA), as well as Flinders University.

The research project addresses three main research questions:

• Who are the magistrates?
• What is the everyday work of the court?
• What is the relationship between magistrates’ courts and social services?

These questions were formulated during the first phase of the project, 2000-2002, based on three research strategies:

• Consultation with magistrates in all states and territories, as well as other stakeholders, to ensure that the research project addressed their major concerns.
• Literature review of social science material, policy documents, legal cases and legal commentary.
• Collation of legislation, statistics and government reports on criminal and civil matters in magistrates courts, to generate a national picture of the operation of magistrates courts in Australia.

Two further major research strategies, undertaken in 2003-2005, directly address the three research questions:

• The National Survey of Australian Magistrates and
• The National Court Observation Study

A brief summary of research is available at http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/law/magistrates/nat_survey.php and a full list of publications is available at https://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/law/magistrates/reports.php.

For information about the Judicial Research Project, which will build on and extend the findings of the Magistrates Research Project, please see http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/law/judicialresearch.