Anger as court adjourns

Legal body left fuming over closure for Games

THE Southport Courthouse will close during next year’s Commonwealth Games amid concerns about traffic and to allow police to be used as security guards.

And the state’s top legal body, the Queensland Law Society, is furious about it because it says it was not consulted.

From April 2-13 next year the court will be open only for urgent matters relating to custody, fresh arrests and domestic violence.

Queensland Law Society president Christine Smyth said the closure would create a bottleneck at the second largest courthouse in the state.

“The Commonwealth Games is a great thing for our city,” she said.

“But to close the court is a failure to plan for that.”

The court is already delaying cases to make way for the Commonwealth Games.

Already this week a matter was adjourned until June because no dates in April or May were available due to the Games closure.

“The court is very busy and closing is just going to create an enormous bottleneck problems,” Ms Smyth said.

Southport Magistrates Court deals with about 10 per cent of all cases in Queensland and the arrest court pushes through 120-180 matters a day.

Ms Smyth said the law society was also concerned about the loss of productivity another court closure would cause.

Courts every year close for of the Christmas period and Ms Smyth said January and February were also lost to public holidays.

“It will put even more strain on those smaller firms and principal practitioners,” she said.

A spokesman from the Chief Magistrate’s office said planning for the Commonwealth Games had been considered for some time.

“These plans have resulted in court arrangements during the Commonwealth Games being determined by two factors, the availability of police witnesses and to a lesser extent police prosecutors and traffic considerations on the Gold Coast,” he said.

The spokesman said additional sitting days would also be arranged to help clear any backlog after the Games.