Australia needs more judges for sex trials

MELBOURNE - With the growing number of sex offences, a senior judge in Australia has said the nation needs more judicial appointments to reduce the backlog of cases.

Victorian county court’s acting chief judge, Margaret Rizkalla, said one more judge on the bench of the state’s busiest court would ease the “choked” court list, caused in part by lengthy sex-offence trials.

Many judges were frustrated that the judiciary was criticised for court delays it had little control over, Rizkalla, a county court judge for 16 years, told The Age.

“If we had more judges tomorrow, we’d use them. Absolutely,” she said.

“We still have a finite number of judges to sit and because of the complexity of cases, the large number of sex trials, which are in themselves more complex than others, means that we really could use many more judges,” she said.