Divorce courts clogged as judges holiday

DIVORCE courts are clogged with a year-long backlog, as highly paid judges enjoy 10 weeks holiday while postponing court hearings until 2022.

One Nation senator Pauline Hanson has demanded that judges be stripped of generous perks, with holidays cut to the four or five weeks a year granted to ordinary workers.

“The courts are overworked and have got a backlog of 20,000 cases,’’ she said. “Cases are taking months, if not a couple of years, to be heard.

“Judges’ entitlements are excessive. I don’t think judges should be appointed for life or ’til they’re 70. They get burnt out, and close to retirement they go on stress leave and sick leave.’’

Senator Hanson is deputy chairwoman of a federal parliamentary inquiry into family law, which has revealed some children have been caught in seven-year custody battles.

Divorce disputes are heard in the Family Court, which fielded a five-year high of 21,054 applications in 2019-20, or the Federal Circuit Court, which had 85,563 family law cases including 45,886 divorce applications in the same year.

The 33 Family Court judges, who hear the most complex disputes, are paid $468,020 plus 15 per cent super and a car allowance – with eight weeks of holiday. The 68 FCC judges are paid $394,980 plus super and a car allowance, with six weeks of holidays and the ability to “purchase’’ four weeks of leave through salary sacrifice – giving them up to 10 weeks.

Judicial salaries were frozen this year after the Remuneration Tribunal knocked back a pay rise due to the COVID-19 recession.