Court of Petty Sessions/Magistrates' Court Commonwealth Registers

Full description

Background: The Commonwealth Jurisdiction of Petty Sessions/Magistrates Courts

Section 77(iii) of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, which established the Commonwealth of Australia, vested in the new Parliament of Australia responsibilities for enacting legislation relating to a large number of matters. It also gave Parliament the power to invest state courts with the jurisdiction to determine matters brought to court under Commonwealth legislation.

Since Federation, Victorian Courts of Petty Sessions have heard matters brought to court under several Commonwealth Acts including taxation, electoral, wireless and television licensing and conciliation and arbitration legislation.

Commonwealth Registers

Successive Justices' Acts and, more recently, Magistrates' Court Acts have required the clerk or registrar of the court to make and keep a register of convictions, orders and other proceedings of the court. This register is the authoritative record of the court.

In 1915 all Clerks of Courts were instructed to keep a separate register for matters under Commonwealth legislation (as described above) and for cases where the defendant resided in another state. Cases falling into either of these categories were recorded in Commonwealth Registers. Prior to about 1915, Commonwealth matters were recorded in ordinary Petty Sessions Registers.

Content

Commonwealth Registers are generally in a common format, giving details of the case number, the name of the prosecutor or informant, the name of the accused or defendant, how the case came to the court (arrest, warrant, summons etc) the fees or court costs accrued, a description of the charge, cause or proceeding (usually indicating the Act under which the charges have been laid), the decision or order and any remarks. The column for remarks was often used to record the payment of fines and fees. In order to authenticate entries made in the register the presiding officer(s) of the court signed it at the end of each day.

Arrangement

Entries in the volumes were made in chronological order of the date they came before the court and each case received a consecutive number. An annual numbering system was used, thus the case numbering system reverted to 1 at the beginning of each year. This number, allocated at the time of entry in the register (a few days before the hearing), was also annotated onto all documents lodged with the court during the case. This case numbering system was completely separate from the system used to control other Petty Sessions cases which were recorded in other Registers.

Related Records

Other types of registers from this court are listed in the Inventory of Series.

Several types of warrants, summonses, informations (ie statements by witnesses and parties to the case informing the court about the case) and other documents were also lodged with or created by the court in the process of administering each Commonwealth case. The documents were known as "process" and were placed together to create a case file. In most instances these files have been destroyed about fifteen years after the completion of the case to which they relate.

1970's and 1980's: Use of Process to form Register

In the 1970's and 1980's many courts ceased to use bound volumes to maintain court registers and began the practice of recording the court's decision on the summons or warrant issued by the court to initiate proceedings. This document was annotated by the presiding Magistrate with his or her decision then filed in case number order with other initiating documents to form a register. Some courts subsequently placed these documents in masonite folders or lever arch files whilst at other courts the registers for this period are simply bundles of papers. Commonwealth cases continued to be registered in a separate sequence to other cases and the summons or warrant forming the register sheet was filed separately.