The Covid-19 List: How to have Your Matter Listed Urgently During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The latest practice direction from the Family Law Courts (the Family Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia) provides the “how, what, when and where” of the new Covid-19 List established to assist separated families in the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The full practice direction can be found here.

The Court has set out the criteria for inclusion on the specialist list as follows:

1. The application must be necessitated as a direct result of the pandemic;
2. The matter must be urgent
3. The application must be supported by Affidavit which addresses the mandatory criteria as follows:
   1. Why it is urgent
   2. How the dispute is as a direct result of Covid-19
   3. Details of current allegations of risk (such as abuse or family violence)
   4. Details of the reasonable attempts to resolve the matter by negotiation
   5. Details of how the proposed Respondent(s) can be provided with the court documents including a current email address
   6. If possible, provide (even by way of photos) a copy of the current orders, parenting plans and family violence orders
4. If safe to do so, you must have attempted reasonably, to resolve the dispute;
5. The matter must be capable of being dealt with by electronic means

The list will be managed by the Chief Justice of the Family Court and Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court and will be present in each registry of the Court. Registrars will assess urgency, as is the normal procedure and “triage” them to the COVID-19 List Judge.

In a measure designed to ensure that truly urgent applications are dealt with urgently, the direction is that must be listed within three (3) business days or less if critically urgent.

If found to not meet the criteria for the COVID-19 List, then the matter will be allocated in the usual course of events to a docket Judge in the relevant registry.

As the list will be managed nationally and electronically, your appearance could be before any Judge in any registry around Australia. The Court will however ONLY be dealing with the discrete Covid-19 application and putting in place arrangements to deal with those specific issues.

In order to assist litigants in person particularly, the Practice Direction identifies some example scenarios as to what matters may fit into the Covid-19 List:

1. Where the current orders are for supervised time and the relevant centre or provider is unable to supervise as a result of their closure or government requirements
2. Where border restrictions result in the inability for parents and children to travel between homes
3. Where parents or children have tested positive for Covid-19 or cannot fulfil their parenting obligations as a result of concerns of infection
4. Where the risk of family violence has increased as a result of the restrictions on movement imposed by the government during the pandemic.

Gold Coast Lawyers at OMB Solicitors can assist urgently with preparation and filing of an Application for inclusion in the Covid-19 List. We have in place all necessary technologies to ensure we can meet with you electronically and attend to filing of material swiftly, such that your parenting arrangements can be managed appropriately during the current global environment.

Contact Abbi Golightly, our Partner and Accredited Specialist Family Lawyers on 07 5555 0000 for an urgent free initial consultation.