Care & Protection
5. Preparing for Court
Authors: Staff Legal Eagle
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 29 Jun 2015
- Care and protection matters are usually dealt with in the Children’s Court by a Children’s Court Magistrate.
- Each person allowed to speak in the court is called a ‘party’ to the case. They can speak for themselves or have a lawyer speak for them in court.
- The department will have a lawyer who will speak for them in court.
- Your child or children will be appointed a lawyer who will speak for them in court. This lawyer is called a Children’s Representative.
- If your child is over twelve (check the age in your state or territory) then he or she can give instructions to their lawyer about what they want.
- You can have a lawyer to speak on your behalf.
- The other parent or grandparents or other caregiver may also ask the court if they can be heard in a case. They can have a lawyer too.
- Often there is a chance for all the parties (with their lawyers) to have a meeting before the case goes into court. There is usually an independent person from the court who runs these meetings and tries to help everyone work out what the main issues are. This means working out which things everyone can agree about and which things people cannot agree about. The process is a little bit like mediation. The issues which cannot be agreed on are then taken into court for the magistrate to make a decision about.
- If you and the department or the other parties want different orders and cannot agree on a compromise then your case will likely go to hearing.
- Your case will be listed on a number of occasions before the final hearing date. These dates are called “mentions” and are mainly to make sure everyone has filed their affidavits (sworn statements) and everything is ready before the final hearing. On these days your case will usually be dealt with quite quickly. There will be lots of other people at court who will also have their cases listed for hearing.
- It is important you come to court every time your case is listed for hearing or mention unless your lawyer tells you that you do not need to be there.
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