TWO Federal Court judges hearing complex commercial matters are trying to make the cases more easily understood by increasing oral evidence, reversing a long trend in higher courts towards greater reliance on documents.
In the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's challenge to Metcash's takeover of Franklins, Justice Arthur Emmett is requiring barristers to read aloud the main points of affidavits before their witnesses take the stand.
When the trial began on March 14, Justice Emmett said there were ''a lot of people in the court who won't know what it's about'' so the relevant parts of each affidavit should be read out. The practice has caused some confusion for court officers, unsure as to whether witnesses should be sworn in before or after the process and where they should stand or sit in the meantime.
It is common in large commercial cases for affidavits to be taken as read and for the only evidence heard in open court to be cross-examination by a barrister opposing the party calling the witness.
Justice Steven Rares has gone further in a class action by clients of the collapsed Lehman Brothers Australia, insisting that all evidence in chief be taken via questions from each witness's barrister.
On Friday Justice Rares also told the barristers he did not want to receive any document as evidence unless its significance was explained to him.
''Why should I be made to go away and sit in my chambers, maybe understand it or not understand it properly as it's intended to be understood?'' he asked.
''The only purpose of the documents is to persuade me that something happened or didn't happen; giving me 20 volumes of stuff to read is not going to help me.''
Banning affidavits in favour of oral evidence in chief had helped him ''understand where things fitted in'' and limited the hearing to material ''that would have made the slightest difference to the decision-making process'' of the witnesses, he said.
If the volume of documents produced in court cases continued to expand, ''it will make litigation inaccessible to ordinary people and even to people as well-resourced as both these parties are''.
www.SMH.com.au
In the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's challenge to Metcash's takeover of Franklins, Justice Arthur Emmett is requiring barristers to read aloud the main points of affidavits before their witnesses take the stand.
When the trial began on March 14, Justice Emmett said there were ''a lot of people in the court who won't know what it's about'' so the relevant parts of each affidavit should be read out. The practice has caused some confusion for court officers, unsure as to whether witnesses should be sworn in before or after the process and where they should stand or sit in the meantime.
It is common in large commercial cases for affidavits to be taken as read and for the only evidence heard in open court to be cross-examination by a barrister opposing the party calling the witness.
Justice Steven Rares has gone further in a class action by clients of the collapsed Lehman Brothers Australia, insisting that all evidence in chief be taken via questions from each witness's barrister.
On Friday Justice Rares also told the barristers he did not want to receive any document as evidence unless its significance was explained to him.
''Why should I be made to go away and sit in my chambers, maybe understand it or not understand it properly as it's intended to be understood?'' he asked.
''The only purpose of the documents is to persuade me that something happened or didn't happen; giving me 20 volumes of stuff to read is not going to help me.''
Banning affidavits in favour of oral evidence in chief had helped him ''understand where things fitted in'' and limited the hearing to material ''that would have made the slightest difference to the decision-making process'' of the witnesses, he said.
If the volume of documents produced in court cases continued to expand, ''it will make litigation inaccessible to ordinary people and even to people as well-resourced as both these parties are''.
www.SMH.com.au
