Katrina Webster, Gordon Legal Criminal Law principal lawyer. Image: supplied
CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES FAMILY AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE.
ANMF (Vic Branch) Council recently approved a family violence support package for members requiring urgent legal assistance with respect to family violence – eg: when obtaining an intervention order. Katrina Webster, Principal Lawyer in Gordon Legal’s Criminal Law Department, explains the details of applying for an intervention order.
The easiest way to apply for an intervention order is via the Magistrates’ Court website. If you are not in a position where you feel it is safe for you to access the Magistrates’ Court website, you can call or visit your nearest Magistrates’ Court. You cannot arrange for someone else to make an application on your behalf, except the police. You can approach police for assistance, and police may apply for an intervention order on your behalf, but they will not always do so.
An application made by a person without assistance from police follows a slightly different path to those applications made by a police officer.
If making your own application, once an application is received by the Magistrates’ Court, you will be contacted to arrange a time for an appointment with the Registrar of your nearest Magistrates’ Court. If your application is approved, you will be provided with a future date for you to attend Court, called a first mention hearing. When you attend your appointment with the Registrar, you may also be successful in obtaining an interim intervention order. You will need to give evidence in a courtroom before a Magistrate or Judicial Registrar for this to occur. An interim intervention order will provide you with the protection of an intervention order on a temporary basis.
In the period between your appointment with the Registrar and the first mention hearing, the Magistrates’ Court will arrange for the respondent to your application to be served with the application paperwork and, if applicable, a copy of the interim intervention order.
If the police make an application for an intervention order on your behalf, you will not be required to attend an appointment with the Registrar. The police will make the application to the Magistrates’ Court on your behalf and will generally be successful in obtaining an interim intervention order. Once the initial application has been made, the Magistrates’ Court will provide police with a first mention hearing date and will arrange for service of material on the respondent.
A first mention hearing is an administrative hearing. Both parties are expected to attend the first mention hearing. The Magistrates’ Court will not determine an application on a final basis on this day, unless there has been an agreed resolution reached between the parties.
The ANMF Family Violence Support Package will provide eligible members with financial assistance for legal representation from Gordon Legal to this point in the application process.
If there is no agreement reached between the parties, then your application will need to be adjourned. Your application may either be adjourned for a further mention hearing, or it will be progressed to the next stage in the application process, called a directions hearing. All applications will require at least a first mention hearing, and some will require additional mention hearings.
If your application is progressed to a directions hearing, the Magistrates’ Court will usually order the parties to provide ‘Further and Better Particulars.’ This is the name given to the bundle of materials each party wants to rely upon in support of their case.
Like a mention hearing, a directions hearing is an administrative hearing – meaning the Magistrates’ Court will not determine your application on a final basis on this day, unless there has been an agreed resolution reached between the parties. At a directions hearing, the Magistrates’ Court has the benefit of both parties’ ‘Further and Better Particulars’ and will attempt to assist parties to reach an agreed resolution if one has not been reached already. Applications that reach directions hearing stage will generally only require one directions hearing, however some will require additional directions hearings.
If there is still no agreement reached between the parties, then your application will need to be progressed to the final stage in the application process, called a contested hearing. This is the hearing where both parties present their cases to a Magistrate or Judicial Registrar, including by way of oral evidence and cross-examination. The Court then decides whether to grant your application for an intervention order. The decision of the Magistrate or Judicial Registrar is binding on the parties, although may be appealed in limited circumstances.
ANMF members are not always going to be the applicant in an intervention order proceeding. Some will be the respondents, where the application against them for an intervention order is a form of family violence in and of itself. A member in this scenario may still be eligible for financial assistance under the Family Violence Support Package.
