Brown, Gavin; Voyage, John; Powles, Guy; Weiss, Peter J; Rose, Joseph; Melville, Andrew P --- "Letters: Police stations unsuitable for access exchanges" [1997] LawIJV 29; (1997) 71(2) The Law Institute Journal 5

• Police stations unsuitable for access exchanges
• Transport Accident Act amendments
• Student court appearances
• What's the point?
• In praise of sole practice
• Conveyancing rules for government

Police stations unsuitable for access exchanges

Recently, a consent order was made before the registrar in the Family Court in metropolitan Melbourne.

In part, that order specified "that change over in respect of all future access periods take place at [a country] police station".

Victoria Police is concerned that such orders are being made without the agreement of the officer in charge of the police station concerned, and often without any consultation taking place.

Police stations are not suitable places for the hand-over of children pursuant to court orders for a number of reasons: They promote a false sense of security for the parties by the implication that the parties will be protected against assault. In many cases the police station will be inadequately staffed to provide any real level of protection.

They expose children to a cold and uninviting environment at a potentially stressful time in their lives and this could create negative associations with police stations.

Police stations are not physically equipped for this sort of event.

GAVIN BROWN

Assistant Commissioner, Corporate Police Planning & Review Dept

Transport Accident Act amendments

Amendments to the Transport Accident Act, contained in the Accident Compensation (Further Amendment) Act 1996, include the amendment relating to secondary psychiatric or psychological injury.

I wish to record that I was heartened by the unity of a group of plaintiff transport accident practitioners and several defend-ant practitioners in seeking to inform the public of the consequences of the amendments.

Furthermore, I wish to thank the treasurer, Alan Stockdale, for his courageous letter to the Law Institute dated 6 Dec-ember 1996. In that letter Mr Stockdale says in part:

"I also note your example of the double amputee who, unable to claim a secondary psychological or psychiatric component under the proposed amendment, would only attract a 48 percent permanent impairment and would be excluded from receiving weekly benefits beyond three years. The TAC's existing, well-known policy is to apply the rounding principle in the Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment to make a determination of 50 percent."

I was unfamiliar with this existing and well-known policy. Members of the Institute's TAC Committee were unfamiliar with this existing and well-known policy. However, it is important that all practitioners dealing with TAC matters become aware of this existing and well-known policy.

JOHN VOYAGE

Maurice Blackburn & Co

Student court appearances

Jon Faine fears the Legal Practice Act 1996 might stand in the way of student appearances ("Student counsel scheme under threat" January 1997 Journal.

The Monash Law School staff who run the scheme at Springvale and Monash-Oakleigh Legal Services as part of the LLB professional practice course are more optimistic.

Students seeking leave to appear in appropriate cases under supervision rely on the court's inherent jurisdiction (see S Campbell, "My learning friend: students in court" October 1993 Journal, page 914).

Section 315(2) of the new Act gives statutory recognition to the common law principle by reserving to the court or tribunal the power "to give or refuse leave for a person to represent another".

GUY POWLES

Solicitor and Associate Professor of Law, Monash Universit

What's the point?

Would someone please explain to me what Jon Faine is on about in his article in the January 1997 Journal?

On page 17, Mr Faine describes in glowing terms the "win win" situation where a young malefactor obtained representation in court without payment.

It is not immediately apparent how this is a win-win situation. Some of us, who have to charge clients for a living, might have thought that this is more of a winwin-lose situation: the young scofflaw wins free representation in court, the student wins a chance to gain some practice in court, and a real live solicitor loses a job.

Lest there be any thought that Mr Faine is writing about helping those too poor to pay for representation, he gives us the case of Adam, who gloats that, although he was happy "to pay maybe a couple of hundred bucks", he did not have to pay even that. Hardly a win-win, is it.

Why shouldn't young criminals (Adam, let it be remembered, was pleading guilty) pay for legal representation, as they pay for motor car service, plumbing and electrical works, or any of a host of services provided on a user-pays basis.

But, in fact, has anything changed under the new Act? Mr Faine makes no mention of s315 which provides exemptions to the prohibition on unqualified legal practice. In particular, s315(1)(c) provides that a person who represents another person before a court, if that person has the leave of the court, is not to be taken to engage in legal practice. It seems that all the court has to do is to permit the students to appear, and they can do so.

So I repeat, what is Jon Faine on about? Is the article intended to be another of his series of jibes at our profession? Is it intended to show us the sympathetic and caring face of Jon Faine, the sharp-eyed reporter, jumping in to seek out and correct injustice? Is it intended to draw our attention to a defect in the new Act? There are enough of those, but on this point Mr Faine's complaint seems misconceived.

In a free society Mr Faine is entitled, within certain limits, to write what he pleases. As censorship is undesirable, I suppose I am not seeking to censor Mr Faine. Perhaps just to call on him to exercise some self-censorship.

PETER J WEISS

Solicitor

In praise of sole practice

I was interested to read the article "Flying solo" by Jon Faine in the December 1996 Journal.

I believe that the article is negatively skewed. There are joys and benefits in being a successful sole practitioner and I believe that you should contact a number of us so that we can tell of our positive experiences.

We have obviously chosen, in most cases, to remain sole practitioners and there are positive reasons for this which your article does not even attempt to find out about.

In my opinion Mr Lederman, who is quoted extensively in the article, is a wonderful role model for young lawyers. He is not the only person who could be interviewed. Perhaps you should contact the many sole practitioners working in this state and find out from them how they keep running their practices at a profit.

JOSEPH ROSE

Solicitor

Conveyancing rules for government

We note with some dismay that there appears to be one rule for the public in selling land and another for the government. Sale of land by an individual re-quires strict compliance with s32 of the Sale of Land Act, with dire consequences for non-compliance by a vendor.

However, it appears that the government has exempted itself from such compliance as it is happy to sell land in rural Victoria (and presumably in sub-urban Melbourne) without disclosing the planning and other appropriate details to the purchasers. In one instance in which we have been involved, the land is zoned for Public Use Purposes (Railway). The planning scheme has a blanket prohibition against the land being used for anything other than railway purposes. Thus, the purchase of the land and dwelling house (which has been unoccupied for over two years) by our client for the purposes of residing therein is technically contrary to the planning scheme. Our client would be prohibited from carrying out any renovations or repairs.

The other matter of concern is that a stormwater drain starts on the land which our clients are purchasing and continues to drain water over other land owned by the government over which no formal drainage easement has been created.

In our experience, the above situations are not one-offs. The government is disposing of surplus land on the cheap to unsuspecting purchasers who may well have subsequent problems in obtaining finance or reselling the property because of defects which should have been fixed up by a bona fide vendor. It is certainly a case of one rule for the government and another for the public.

ANDREW P MELVILLE

Solicitor