National curriculum for professional development for Australian judicial officers

The curriculum is here

A brief flyer on the curriculum is here.

Background

In 2005 the Council of the NJCA initiated a project to develop a national curriculum for professional development for Australian judicial officers.

The decision to develop a curriculum of this kind arose because of the perceived need to establish a framework to give some structure and balance to the various professional development activities for judicial officers being held throughout Australia.

The NJCA envisages that the curriculum will be a document to which all bodies providing professional development for judicial officers, including courts, might refer to help them set priorities, identify areas that could be covered but are not currently covered, and avoid duplication of effort. It is not meant to be prescriptive. The curriculum is not

• a curriculum for training persons to become judicial officers. The curriculum assumes that knowledge of the law and those skills which are required for appointment as a judicial officer.
• a listing of all the programs a judicial officer should undertake in his/her time on the bench. Various programs will not be appropriate or valuable for a particular judicial officer. The curriculum is a listing of all programs that should desirably be available to all Australian judicial officers from the various providers of judicial professional development.

In developing the Curriculum the National Judicial College of Australia sought comments from all courts in Australia, the Judicial Conference of Australia, the Australian Association of Magistrates, the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, the Judicial Commission of NSW and the Judicial College of Victoria.