Justice Darren Jackson from the Perth bureau of the Federal Court has been attracting spirited attention from litigants.
Peter Chambers filed a Fair Work case in the Federal Court on August 9, 2023. It was heard by Jackson J over two-and-a-half days in December last year, with closing submissions filed on January 31, 2025. Still, there’s no judgment.
Essentially, the case comes down to whether any agreement between Chambers and the Perth construction company Broadway Homes was formed, if so on what terms, whether the agreement was breached, and whether the Fair Work Act was breached.
Chambers entered into correspondence with Chief Justice Mortimer, explaining the hardship impacting his life due to the time it is taking for Jackson’s deliberation.
He presented the human side of how a delayed judgment can impact a litigant – whether this is due to the judge’s tardy pace or a court that is not properly resourced.
Chambers told the CJ that “Justice Jackson has been an exceptional judge in this matter and that this is more of an issue with resourcing that creates a lack of efficiency”.
The court’s 2023-2024 annual report claimed that 79% of judgments were delivered within three months and that 83% of proceedings were completed within 18 months.
Obviously, Chambers is one of numerous cases that fall outside those parameters.
“This inefficiency creates a belief within the community that access to justice is only for the rich and powerful that can outlast their opponent.”
In a discussion with Chief Justice Richard Niall of the Vic Supremes, Mortimer seemed to agree:
“We’ve been very accommodating of … well-resourced parties about how much judicial time they can take up. Maybe that’s something that needs to be reviewed if we’re to develop confidence in our community that we pay the same level of attention to people that aren’t as well resourced.”
Chambers says that his claim of underpayment and employment termination is not complicated. The hearing on liability involved only three witnesses, with any penalties and damages to be determined later.
He is self-represented and is currently on a hardship arrangement with his mortgage, plus his electricity and water bills, “with no light at the end of the tunnel”.
“My family is on the verge of losing our home, we have compounding unpaid utility bills, and another Christmas is coming without resolution in place.”
Effectively, he has put his life on hold. He hasn’t had a regular job since he commenced his action, spending time learning the law and putting his case together.
If he did have a job and was successful on liability, he would then have to dive into preparing for penalties and damages, and put the job on hold.
While it’s a frustrating and precarious life for litigants in the slow lane, Chief Justice Mortimer replied, taking the time to make a detailed case that judging is also tough for judges.
Over four-and-a-half pages, she argued that in her view Chambers’ proceeding has been “dealt with in a careful and timely way”. No unreasonable delay or inefficiency anywhere in sight.
Further, “each proceeding must take its own individual course depending on what occurs during the currency of the proceedings”.
She spelled out the course of events for the management of Chambers’ case: numerous preliminary consent orders; timetabling orders; mediation (November 24, 2023); further consent orders about the later hearing on penalty; case management hearings; a joinder application; timetabling of affidavits and submissions; further case management varying the time for compliance with the orders relating to pleadings, evidence, trial bundle, discovery and the joinder application; judgment dismissing the joinder application; and strike out application for summary judgment.
This demonstrates, said the CJ, why “bare assertions about ‘efficiency’ do not grapple with the need for individual steps in each proceeding”.
“This chronology shows your proceeding progressed without any excessive or unexplained delay.”
Subsequently, Justice Jackson’s associate advised Chambers:
“Taking your concerns into account, and doing what we can to arrange commitments accordingly, his Honour will aim to provide judgment in your matter by the end of January 2026. You may wish to inform the bank accordingly.
“I will contact you again in December 2025 to give you an update and to inform you as to whether there is any reason to change this estimate as to judgment delivery.”
Maybe there won’t be much eggnog and cake for HH over Christmas.
Chief Justice Mortimer continued her treatise with details about the court life of her judges.
Judges in the court’s original jurisdiction carry dockets of between 40 and 60-70 cases. They hear and determine Full Court appeals, about 10 or 12 a year. Then there’s urgent duty and interlocutory work, dealing with between 9 and 14 of those matters annually.
When judges reserve judgment, “they do not retreat to their chambers only to work on that case”. They are back in court, reserving more judgments. They also have duty work, and there is the (“time-consuming”) travel.
Plus, judges are engaged in countless professional events, orations, cocktail functions, welcome ceremonies, committee meetings, and seminars – as can be seen in the case of Justice Jackson between July 2019 and June 2024.
“Thank you for corresponding with me. I take such correspondence seriously, as I hope you can see.”
Judges also have families and family responsibilities and, from time to time, health problems. “Judges are not automatons or machines, and nor would litigants want them to be.”
“At a human level I can well understand your anxiety about both the proceeding, and how to manage what appears to be a challenging personal situation. I hope you can understand and appreciate that the majority of litigants in the Federal Court experience similar kinds of anxieties, albeit for a range of reasons …
Since I have become Chief Justice, I have made particular efforts to reduce delays in finalising reserve judgments, and the Court’s statistics show that the number of judgments reserved for over 6 months, and over 12 months, is steadily reducing …
I am confident Justice Jackson is approaching the order in which he is dealing with his reserved judgments in a manner that his Honour considers fair and appropriate to all the litigants who have reserved judgments in his docket …
Thank you for corresponding with me. I take such correspondence seriously, as I hope you can see.”
≈ ≈ ≈
Peter Chambers was not satisfied, and the next day fired a reply back to the CJ.
His matter was filed 27 months ago and is well outside the court’s performance benchmarks, where 86% are completed within 18 months of commencement.
He adds a helpful quote from Taco Bell, CJ of the NSW Supremes:
“A six-month delay for judgment in a one or two-day hearing is generally completely unacceptable, whereas such a delay following a four-week case with multiple parties is quite a different proposition.”
We’ve reported previously on Ian Jackman citing the relevant principles regarding judicial delay:
A delay of 12 months is generally regarded as “substantial [and] excessive” (Beaman v Bond), while almost 17 months was described by Carr, Emmett and Gyles JJ in Expectation Pty Ltd v PRD Realty Pty Ltd as “grossly inordinate”.
We’ve also had the sorry duty to report on Darren Jackson’s priors in the Golden Snail Stakes.
There was a beyond-grossly inordinate delay for his judgment turnaround in Koolan Iron Ore Pty Ltd v Infrassure Ltd (No 2) of two years and five months.
See: The slow lane – No overtaking
He turned out judgment in Dig It Landscapes Pty Ltd (in liq)v Bupa Aged Care Australia (No 2) within a slightly speedier two-year gestation.
See: Slumbering snails
Correspondence between Debra Mortimer and Peter Chambers
Follow-up: Chambers to Mortimer
Social media’s slippery slope
Bronwyn Hendry has attracted the attention of the Perth media.
She has a case alleging unlawful discriminatory conduct involving sexual harassment, disability, and sex-based discrimination.
Her claim, which commenced in November 2023, is that this took place while she was employed by the Department of Justice at Bunbury Regional Prison. She is suing the State of WA and five other respondents.
She filed an application in July 2025 for Justice Darren Jackson to recuse himself from the case. She argued that Fiona Stanton, counsel for the State, and the judge have a “close personal connection”.
Significantly, this is said to arise from a Facebook plea made by the judge to support his brother-in-law in a GoFundMe campaign that had been organised by his wife.
His brother-in-law suffered a serious, debilitating medical condition – Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Both Staunton and Jackson are Facebook friends. Staunton and Jackson’s wife are also Facebook friends and from time to time, “like” each other’s posts. Staunton also “liked” the judge’s Facebook profile picture. (It’s quaint that people still use Facebook. Ed.)
Staunton and the judge’s brother-in-law were also friends at the same school in Perth (Hollywood Senior High School).
On August 31, 2024, Justice Jackson posted a plea to support his wife’s GoFundMe campaign for her ill brother.
“Hello all – please consider contributing to this cause if you can. [link provided] My brother-in-law… is going through a truly grievous medical emergency at the moment, and his family will appreciate any help you can give. Many thanks.”
That same day, Staunton donated $500 to the campaign.
“The fair-minded observer would conclude that Ms Stanton and I have an unremarkable professional association.”
Ms Hendry further claimed that Jackson and Staunton have “financial interests in one another”. It was suggested that the contribution was a benefit to the judge because it “relieved” him of the burden of providing financial support for his brother-in-law and his family.
The applicant was also unhappy with the judge’s case management decisions and with treatment by the court’s administration.
The State submitted that the disclosures are “almost entirely professional interactions”.
Jackson put on his hypothetical fair-minded observer hat and found there was no ground to recuse himself from the case.
“All of these matters need to be considered together, rather than picked off in isolation. In doing so, the fair-minded observer would conclude that Ms Stanton and I have an unremarkable professional association of a kind had by judges and barristers appearing before them every day; that I posted a link to the GoFundMe campaign out of a simple wish to help my brother-in-law and his family in their hour of need; that Ms Stanton made the donation to help a school friend in his hour of need; that the suggestion of a nefarious or corrupt motivation for these acts is an outlandish one; that any reaction I might have to learning of Ms Stanton’s donation pertains only to an independent barrister, not to a party to the proceeding or a witness; and that these are matters to which a professional judge will pay no regard in deciding the case on its merits. The possibility that they will lead me to decide this proceeding other than on the merits is remote.”
But that was not the end of it.
The judge returned the proceeding to the court’s national operations registry to be reallocated.
“Ms Hendry has assiduously combed through the social media presence of not only me, but my wife. She chose to file affidavits which included screen captures of images of my family.
Above all, Ms Hendry has based her application in large part on a grievous medical emergency that has afflicted a member of my family.”
He added that it would be difficult to be objective about a litigant “who had conducted themselves in this way in connection with the judge’s family circumstances.”