A country Victorian magistrate who has returned to her home town has spoken of the challenges of dealing with growing workloads, public pressure, outdated facilities and familiar faces.
Megan Aumair was appointed as a magistrate in January 2016 after working as a solicitor in central Victoria for more than a decade.
She is now based back in Bendigo after cutting her teeth at the Broadmeadows court in Melbourne's notoriously rugged outer northern suburbs.
In a rare interview for a sitting member of the judiciary, Ms Aumair describes how the move has brought her back to places and people she knows as she confronts the stresses and strains of her position.
'Devastating' death of colleague
The starkest example of those strains is the sudden death of fellow magistrate, Stephen Myall earlier this year.
"We as magistrates have lost two colleagues in the last eight months," Ms Aumair said.
"It has been an extremely difficult period.
"I knew Steve Myall more when I was a solicitor, and I remember sitting in court on a number of occasions and thinking, 'Gee, if I was ever a magistrate I wanted to be like him'.
"He cared about everyone and everything, and it was devastating to lose Steve."
Mr Myall's suicide has prompted soul-searching within the judiciary and a renewed focus on magistrates' workloads, both inside and outside the courtroom.
"This region has experienced a 40 per cent increase in the number of criminal prosecutions that have been initiated by the court between 2011 and 2017," Ms Aumair said.
"The complexity of the work is becoming greater, and we're dealing with a lot of people in person and that takes a lot of time and effort.
"There is a lot of pressure — there are sometimes 30, 40, or 50 decisions that we need to make in a day.
"The court has taken steps to address that by limiting the sitting hours between 10am and 4pm now and having the opportunity to debrief with a qualified psychologist is something that is new and welcomed."
Courthouse dates to 1800s
The workload is a particular challenge for magistrates stationed at Bendigo, which has a courthouse dating back to the late 1800s.
Its main court rooms are cavernous, and there is an almost complete absence of privacy for lawyers wanting to speak to their clients.
"Bendigo has needed a new court building for as long as I have lived and worked in this region," Ms Aumair said.
"The dreadful acoustics, the narrow steps, the lack of security and safe places for vulnerable people is very concerning to me.
"It is a grand and wonderful building, but a museum of the history of this city would be far more appropriate."
After years of campaigning, a shift to a new facility is in the very early stages of planning.
Money was allocated in this year's state budget to buy land for a new court, widely expected to be built on the site of the city's TAFE campus.
There has been talk of a new court being ready early in the next decade.
"It is so very important that a new court is built and that it's built soon," Ms Aumair said.
"Certainly I will do what I can to advocate strongly for a new court building in this region."
'Without fear or favour'
While progressing and funding plans for the new court will ultimately be an issue for MPs, Ms Aumair says politically-charged debates and criticism of the judiciary are something she simply tries to ignore.
"It's really important to try and block out the political debate," she said.
"You can't avoid the media scrutiny — and scrutiny is a good thing — but when the scrutiny becomes personal and uninformed and unbalanced, that's when concerns are raised.
"What magistrates must do is apply the law, and the sentencing task is enshrined in legislation."
Ms Aumair said her handling of cases that come before her is shaped by her experience as a lawyer.
"I've adopted an approach to this job that requires offenders to be more accountable," she said.
"I didn't see a lot of that when I was practising as a solicitor and maybe that's why I'm seeing a lot of my former clients continuing to appear in court."
However, conflicts do sometimes emerge.
"I think it's more of a headache for our co-ordinator than it is for me," Ms Aumair said.
"I work with the co-ordinator and make sure that those who I have had a lot to do with don't come before me, and that's out of fairness to them.
"I took an oath to discharge my duties without fear or favour, and that is without bias or favouritism.
"That is to anybody, whether it be the lawyers I know, the prosecutors I know, or the accused that appears before me.
"That's in each and every case."
