InBrief

The president of the Court of Appeal has advised the Bar Association that the Supreme Court building will be undergoing renovations from late September 2009. The renovations will commence with Level 12 of the Supreme Court building, which includes both the President’s Court and Court 12, where a number of Court of Appeal hearings are held. During the renovation period the Court of Appeal will be using the Old Banco Court located in the St James Court complex. This arrangement has a number of implications for the way authorities are used in Court of Appeal hearings.

The court has requested that, due to the limited space in the Old Banco Court, lists of authorities will need to be strictly limited to ten copies of CLR and NSWLRs.

All other cases will have to be provided in copy form by the parties. These should be attached to the list of authorities, or brought to court if that is more convenient. Please be aware that the court staff will not print out cases for use in court. Judges will not have access to any material which is not provided to the court.

The submissions box for lists of authorities will be moved to Level 11. Lists of authorities will still be due 24 hours prior to the hearing (in most cases 10am on the business day prior to the hearing).

On time lodgement of lists of authorities remains important.

These changes will need to be implemented from Monday 28 September 2009.

The court has emphasised that these are temporary arrangements which are necessary to deal with practical issues arising from the renovations.

The court has requested the assistance of all members of the New South Wales Bar in complying with these requests.

Due to the interim nature of the changes, the current version of the Court of Appeal Practice note will remain unchanged.

21 September 2009