On the cusp of federal courts restructure … Caustic advice to Thee-Wigs Willy Alstergren on how to run the Family Court’s appeal division … New head of the division has limited family law experience, as does the chief justice … Recipe for unhappiness … Rules, requirements and ruminations 

Bedding down the backend integration of the courts is virtually complete and the next step is the fusion of the judiciary for the Federal and Family Courts into an uber entity to be presided over by Chuckles Allsop. 

Implementation of the transition now requires Family Court judicial appointments to be few and far between, unless “reliable” types manage to get elevated from the Circus Court. 

Chuckles has indicated that he is not in favour of specialist courts and so to thin out the ranks existing Family Court trial judges will be encouraged to retire by being given the worst sort of work, in the hope they will get frustrated or bored. 

Overall, the evisceration of the court’s judges is a process that is expected to take five years. Thereafter, the Circus Court will handle family law matters with appeals going to the Federal Court’s family division under Three Wigs Willy Alstergren. The appointment of Alstergran as head of the current appeals division is a training-wheels exercise for the real thing. 

Family practitioners are hopeful that the High Court might start paying attention to this area of the law and allow more special leave applications. 

It’s a scathing document, dripping with sarcasm and suggesting that with all the wigs he is wearing Alstergren will be incapable of adequately grappling with the task of running the appeals division. Nonetheless Thackray continues to rub-in the enormity of the tasks ahead. 

He said he’s surprised to find that what is said verbally doesn’t always translate into action, “therefore I think it prudent that our communications in achieving the orderly transition be in writing”. 

He notes that Pascoe CJ advised him that Alstergren has already familiarised himself “with the work of the division without, it seems, any need to speak to me in order to do so”. 

As for achieving an “orderly transition” as requested by Pascoe, Thackray says that is limited, “in circumstances where the outgoing leadership had no forewarning that a transition was to be required. Ultimately therefore, responsibility for ensuring the transition is ‘orderly’ largely falls on the incoming leadership”. 

As for the Family Court of Australia, it is in “poor shape”: 

“It suffers by virtue of systemic delays, catastrophic failures of governance, and lack of independence from the executive government and other courts. The morale of judges and staff is at an all-time low. Judges are replaced very slowly or not at all, irrespective of recent public pronouncements to the contrary. These difficulties are magnified by blurred lines of responsibility and authority amongst members of senior management who are in a position of conflict of interest …”  

The appeals division, on the other hand, is in good shape, reaching “a level of efficiency unknown in the more recent history of the court”. 

Thackray piles it on, saying that Three Wigs would have noted that the colleagues on the appeals division with whom he sat just before his appointment was announced, “each has more than three decades of experience in family law”. 

It gets more revealing. The handover memorandum reveals there are 10 staff members working for Tip-Top and Three Wigs, with some working for both judges, which has led to confusion. 

For instance, one staffer who works for Pascoe was apparently commanded by Alstergren to give instructions to managers about the entitlements for appeal judges’ associates.

“As this has the potential to cause offence, and thereby put productivity at risk, it would be best for all to know on whose authority staff members are purporting to deliver such instructions.” 

Willy has two associates and a research officer, plus a manager and an executive assistant. Thackray had two staff members. 

A memo of this calibre would not be compete without a crack at the non-sitting chief justice himself: 

“You will find it easier allocating the work if the next chief justice is able to sit on appeals as regularly as did the previous three. Each regarded jurisprudential leadership as a core component of their role. The involvement of the chief justice in hearing cases will greatly reduce the burden on the other judges, who have recently had to carry the entire burden, albeit they did so admirably, and reduced wait times in the process.”  

Thackray goes to considerable trouble to set out all the various tasks that Three-Wigs is required to fulfil: 

“Of course, I do not know how it is intended that you would simultaneously fulfil your duties as Chief Judge of the Circuit Court, Head of the Appeal Division, Deputy Chief Justice and it seems not infrequently Acting Chief Justice. 

It would be remiss of me not to express my concern that the workload of head of the Appeal Division may have been underestimated at the time the decision was taken to appoint you, without consultation with any member of the division itself. It will, I suggest, be essential that you monitor that carefully, particularly as much of the work does not lend itself to delegation.” 

Thrackray said he had been congratulated by Tip-Top in an email on December 21, 1017 and again on February 23, 2018. 

“Ten working days later, my position as head of the appeal division was terminated – over the telephone. I am not aware of any intervening event.” 

Pascoe has asked Alstergren to carry out a review of the court’s appeal division. Thackray couldn’t resist this parting shot: 

“This is an excellent idea as examination of the work of the division and the ways it has demonstrated how radical improvements can be made quickly, collegiately and with budget savings might provide a template for similar improvements in other parts of the family law system.” 

The synchronicity could not be better, as a missive from our old friend The Groper arrives from Perth, home to another brand of Family Law Court. 

Written by an anonymous WA family law practitioner it is a lament to the slow strangulation of the Family Court of Australia, a court beset by politics and not a few cronies. 

“Back at his den in Wentworth, John (the Undertaker) Pascoe is embalming the corpse, quietly waiting as he has been for this moment for almost 20 years …” 

The Family Court of Australia is Dead … read on …