Court Services Victoria and the New Politics of Judicial Independence: A Critical Analysis of the Court Services Victoria Act 2014 (Vic)

This article critically analyses the landmark reform of the Victorian court system from a comparative international perspective. It is argued that the institutional design of Court Services Victoria (‘CSV’) was largely driven by a desire to protect judicial independence from the executive government and partly also to enhance the institutional capacity of the judiciary to effectively respond to the emerging social, political and legal challenges. Despite the establishment of CSV, the legislation preserves certain legacy administrative arrangements that impeded court administration in the past, such as the internal governance arrangements in the courts and the absence of clearly defined lines of administrative responsibility. The article also argues that the legislation confers too narrow a function on CSV that focuses on the provision of basic technical and administrative support to the courts. The proposed alternative would be for CSV to assume a much broader developmental mandate in the court system in order to improve the quality of the administration of justice. The article also argues that greater ‘corporatisation’ of the judiciary will be necessary in order to protect its hard-fought independence and visibility in the political arena. The article concludes that greater judicial independence requires more, rather than less, political astuteness and engagement by the judiciary with the other branches of government and the public.