The Court of Appeal determines whether a trial was conducted fairly, and whether the law was correctly applied. Some appeals require permission from the Court of Appeal before they can be heard. Usually three judges will hear an appeal. Upon deciding a case, the Court of Appeal may:. In addition to Supreme Court judges in the Trial Division, the Court has associates judges who perform a range of functions including mediations and pre-trial case management.
Judges of appeal hear cases in the Court of Appeal. Because the Supreme Court is the highest court in Victoria, only the High Court of Australia can review its decisions. Most Supreme Court cases are heard in Melbourne. It is possible to sit in on and observe most cases heard by the Supreme Court.
Visit the attending court page for more information. For current information on cases before the Court, see the Daily List. The Chief Executive Officer oversees the administrative functions of the Court essential to a high quality court that are separated from the judicial component of court matters. Although Funds in Court is recognised as a support function of the Court, it operates as a discrete division under the direction of the Senior Master.
Court administration includes a range of functions that support the judiciary and staff at the Court including:. For example:. However, other civil claims, such as claims under the Consumer Law dispute could, in many cases, also be properly brought in the Court with the appropriate monetary jurisdiction. Most small monetary disputes are basically contractual in nature, and so can be brought under a breach of contract type claim in the Magistrates Court or a claim under Consumer Law.
VCAT has four divisions and 9 different lists under numerous enabling enactments and each list is led by a Deputy President or a Senior Member referred to as a Head of List.
Most of them are experienced lawyers. Finally there are members. A number of them are lawyers but most of them bring other expertise. They include medical practitioners, scientists, retired senior members of the armed services, aviators, accountants, tax experts, business and insurance people, engineers and others.
There are full-time and part-time members at all levels. The Tribunal can be comprised of panels of one, two or three persons. The Tribunal has no internal appeal process.
Nowadays members of the Tribunal also issue surveillance and telephone intercept warrants as well as exercising jurisdiction under proceeds of crime legislation.
There still are specialist tribunals in Australia at the Commonwealth level. In addition to the two just mentioned the other major tribunals are the Migration Review Tribunal and the Refugee Review Tribunal. Since the model of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal as a general merits review tribunal has been reproduced in the states. Each of these tribunals have jurisdiction to review decisions on a range of issues. However, their merits review jurisdiction is not as extensive as the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Whereas Commonwealth Tribunals are only able to review administrative decisions, state tribunals may be given much more jurisdiction. Accordingly, state tribunals are generally empowered to hear consumer, trading, tenancy and similar disputes. The reason why state tribunals but not Commonwealth tribunals can be given these extra powers lies in the nature of the Australian polity. Australia is a federation. It is governed by a federal or Commonwealth government and by state and territory governments.
Division of powers is regulated by the Constitution. Commonwealth powers are controlled by the Constitution. State powers are largely controlled by the states themselves. Commonwealth power is divided between a separate legislature, executive and judiciary.
The judicial power of the Commonwealth cannot be exercised by the executive. It can only be exercised by the judiciary. The judiciary is defined by a number of minimum requirements. Judges, for example, must be independent, an indicia of which is security of tenure. Courts must have the power to enforce their orders 1. In Australia, reviewing administrative decisions on the merits is not an exercise of judicial power, any more than the making of original administrative decisions is an exercise of judicial power.
Both are exercises of executive or administrative power. The review of Commonwealth administrative decisions on their merits is appropriately carried out by tribunals not courts. The validity of Commonwealth administrative review tribunals is not in doubt. The separation of powers doctrine governing the Commonwealth Government precludes Commonwealth tribunals from exercising this or any judicial power.
They are not courts. They are part of the executive arm of government. The strict separation of powers required by the Constitution for the Commonwealth does not apply to the states.
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