gofundme: https://gofund.me/fafd2ae0
There is a serious lack of Justices of the Peace (JPs) in Victoria. JPs provide an invaluable service to Victorians. All act in an Honorary capacity, saving the State millions of dollars.
JPs provide official certification of copies of documents for:
Birth Certificates. Immunisation School docs. Driver’s Licence – certified copy. Certified copies of student records. Statutory Declarations re Intent to Marry. Witnessing documents relating to loans. Certified copies of a plethora of other documents relating to job applications, professional registrations, affidavits, divorce documents, powers of attorney, advanced care directives, voluntary assisted dying, death certificates, probate and the list goes on. Providing a service from the cradle to the grave.
JPs sign about 2.4 million documents each year, help about 600,000 people, volunteer more than 625,000 hours of their time and save the community an estimated $39 million in real costs.
A lack of JPs is imposing a burden on overworked police, and it is estimated freeing up police from things JPs could do would release the equivalent of 415 police per annum.
Taking the number of JPs in each State in 2025, Victoria has 3,500. New South Wales has 75,800, Queensland has 80,000, South Australia has 7,000, Western Australia 2,000 and Tasmania 700.
Victoria’s Honorary Justice System is teetering on the edge of collapse. The Government seems utterly indifferent to the looming crisis and is doing nothing to ensure such a valuable and essential service continues. No new JPs are being appointed.
The time for action is NOW.
The Community Advocacy Alliance calls on the Government to immediately appoint sufficient new JPs to ensure this essential service can survive and prosper in the interest of all Victorians.
This incompetent, corrupt government doesn’t want any more JPs because one day they might have to declare in front of a JP that a statement is ‘true and correct’.
Yes, JP’s provide invaluable and selfless service to the community often outside what would one call “normal” working hours. However, it seems that the Government takes JP’s for granted, providing precious little support for them. I could not believe that the JP’S are, for example, expected to pay out of their own pocket for such essential things like the rubber stamps! Volunteers should be appreciated as they often are. But regrettably not the JP’s.
Until recent times JP’s often provided their service from Police Stations. In so doing they removed the signing of documents tasks from operational police. For some strange reason, this has been discontinued with the negative result of police being tied up signing documents rather than being on the beat!
Just maybe the JP’s could again sit in a second division of the Magistrate’s Court. That would free up the overcrowded Court lists.
AND just maybe the decisions of JPs sitting at the bench would more accurately reflect community expectations with regard to penalty.
The community is sick of lettuce leaf waving Magistrates.