The Federal Court of Australia has partnered with UNSW to investigate why increasing numbers of litigants are representing themselves and the impact this is having on the administration of justice.
The partnership was launched at an event on 19 August, with speakers including WA Federal Court appointee the Hon Justice Craig Colvin.
The project will give researchers access to a decade of de-identified Federal Court data.
The research is being led by Faculty of Law & Justice Associate Professor Dr Harry Hobbs and Professor Kristy Martire from the School of Psychology. It builds on previous research in South Australia examining the administrative burden created by self-represented litigants in the state’s courts.
Dr Hobbs said the Federal Court data would help researchers better understand what was driving the increase in self-representation and develop more effective responses.
An initial pilot will examine court files and judgments and lay the groundwork for a larger research project. That project is expected to explore how self-represented cases differ from matters involving lawyers, including who self-represented litigants are, where they come from and how their cases progress through the court. The research will also consider the experience of courts and judicial officers in managing self-represented matters.
Dr Hobbs said the issue was not simply about whether litigants should receive assistance, but about how courts could help people present their cases effectively while maintaining the court’s impartiality.
He pointed to cases involving sovereign citizens as an example of the particular challenges courts can face, including large volumes of material that may need to be examined to identify whether there is an underlying legal issue. The consequences can extend beyond the individual proceeding, he said, with the time and resources required to manage complex self-represented matters potentially affecting the time taken to resolve other cases.
Professor Martire will bring a psychological perspective to the research, with the longer-term project intended to examine the experiences of self-represented litigants themselves. She said access to court data would allow researchers to examine the issue at scale, while a future phase could involve speaking directly with people who had represented themselves about their experiences.
The ultimate aim is to identify practical strategies that support both procedural fairness and the efficient administration of justice. Dr Hobbs said the research could help inform guidance for judges about managing self-represented litigants by identifying why existing approaches may not always be effective and what alternative approaches might work better.
