Rilak and Tsocas (No 5)

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA

RILAK & TSOCAS (NO 5) [2015] FamCA 848

FAMILY LAW – PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Adjournment – Where the applicant mother made an application for adjournment of the final hearing – Where the proceedings are in the third tranche of a final hearing – Where the mother only recently obtained legal representation for the remainder of the final hearing – Where the adjournment application was strongly opposed by the respondent father and the ICL – Where further delay of the final hearing was not in the best interests of the child – Application for adjournment refused.

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

Aon Risk Services Australia Ltd v Australian National University (2009) 239 CLR 175
Queensland v JL Holdings Pty Ltd (1997) 189 CLR 146

APPLICANT: Ms Rilak

RESPONDENT: Ms Tsocas

INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: Peter Baker

FILE NUMBER: SYC 2062 of 2010

DATE DELIVERED: 4 August 2015

PLACE DELIVERED: Sydney

PLACE HEARD: Sydney

JUDGMENT OF: Loughnan J

HEARING DATE: 4 August 2015

REPRESENTATION

COUNSEL FOR THE APPLICANT: Ms Saw

SOLICITOR FOR THE APPLICANT: Law Society of New South Wales

COUNSEL FOR THE RESPONDENT: Mr Levy

SOLICITOR FOR THE RESPONDENT: Watts McCray Lawyers

COUNSEL FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: Ms Falloon

SOLICITOR FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: Peter Baker Solicitor

Orders

1. The oral application for an adjournment of proceedings is refused.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Rilak & Tsocas has been approved by the Chief Justice pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY

FILE NUMBER:  SYC2062 of 2010

Ms Rilak

Applicant

And

Ms Tsocas

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. These are proceedings for financial and parenting orders.  This is the third tranche of a hearing that commenced in January of this year, continued in May and resumed again today.  The mother was initially represented by a solicitor and during the second phase of the hearing terminated the solicitor’s instructions.  There was a day or so where the mother did not attend at all, and then the mother indicated that she was proceeding without legal representation.

2. For the purposes of this phase of the hearing a notice of address for service had been filed for the mother under what I understood to be the New South Wales Law Society’s pro bono scheme, and a barrister Ms Saw represented the mother.  Ms Saw indicated that her client’s attitude in the parenting case had changed significantly.  I thought I heard her say that the mother was now seeking orders for equal time.  Ms Saw later indicated that the mother’s application was for equal parental responsibility and for the father to have unsupervised time on alternate weekends.

3. I expressed some concern to Ms Saw on the basis that the orders the mother now sought seemed to be inconsistent with much of the mother’s evidence relating to allegations of child abuse against the father. I indicated that even if the other parties agreed to the…