The Magistrates' and Children's Courts of Victoria consider an e-registry

The Magistrates’ Court of Victoria will establish a Family Violence Contact Centre to manage family violence and personal safety intervention order enquiries in both the Magistrates’ Court and Children’s Court jurisdictions. The Magistrates’ and Children’s Courts will also introduce a modern case management system that will be adaptable to the needs of modern courts and enhance community access to justice by providing timely, accurate and complete information.

The Magistrates’ Court has operated a dedicated Family Violence Contract Centre since May 2018. The court now has a centralised unit to manage family violence and personal safety intervention order enquiries in both the Magistrates’ and Children’s Court jurisdictions. The Family Violence Contact Centre supports the following eight headquarter court locations; Melbourne, Shepparton, Heidelberg, Sunshine, Dandenong, Ringwood, Geelong, and Frankston (e-mails only) taking approximately 7,500 enquiries per month and responds to 80,000 enquires diverted from local courts to a central contact centre per annum.

Substantial work has been undertaken in relation to the development of a new case-management system, including procurement of a provider to deliver the system which will be implemented via staged roll-out. It is anticipated that case-management system will be fully operational by mid-2022.

Implemented