National Standard for Judicial Professional Development

In 2004 the National Judicial College of Australia (NJCA) initiated a process to promote the preparation of a national standard or benchmark for the amount of time and funding that should be available for each member of the Australian judiciary for professional devlopment.

The process started with the circulation of a discussion paper to judicial officers and other interested organisations.

This resulted in the development of the Standard

The Standard has been endorsed by the Council of Chief Justices of Australia, Chief Judges, Chief Magistrates, the Judicial Conference of Australia, the Association of Australian Magistrates, the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration and judicial education bodies.

The NJCA hopes that the Standard will serve a number of purposes.

It will improve public awareness of the importance of professional development for the judiciary.

It will inform the Australian public of the judiciary’s commitment to appropriate professional development. This should help maintain public confidence in the judiciary.

It will emphasise to heads of jurisdiction and to members of the judiciary the importance of time being made available for professional development.

It will provide a basis for courts to urge governments to provide appropriate funding for judicial professional development.