Governance

The Council

The Council is the governing body of the NJCA. It comprises five judicial officer members who are nominated and appointed by a prescribed appointing authority – a nominee of the Federal Courts, a nominee of the State or Territory Supreme Courts, a nominee of the District or County Courts, a nominee of the Magistrates or Local Courts, a nominee of the Commonwealth, State and Territory tribunals. Importantly, also on the Council are two non-judicial stakeholder appointments; a member nominated by the Commonwealth Attorney-General and a member nominated by Participating State and Territory Attorney’s-General. Each appointing authority may also appoint an Alternate Member.

The NJCA Council Chair is appointed by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

Program Development

NJCA judicial education and training programs are judge-led, reflect contemporary adult learning principles, are judicial officer centric in design and carry an experiential learning philosophy.  Our programs provide participants with an appropriate balance of knowledge and understanding, alongside practical judge-craft skills, achieved through structured, small group discussion and hands-on practical exercises relevant to the program rationale and judicial learning outcomes. 

The NJCA, as part of its overarching program development, published Attaining Judicial Excellence: A Guide for the NJCA in 2019 as a resource to support its strategic planning and to assist in designing professional development programs for Australian judicial officers. In developing the elements, the NJCA consulted with 80 judicial officers from around Australia and from different jurisdictions. These elements describe the knowledge, skills and qualities of judicial officers, which those consulted, consider to be facilitative of judicial excellence. A copy of the guide is available under our resources.

The Programs Advisory Committee (PAC) provides the NJCA Council with support in considering and developing new and existing programs, enabling the NJCA to draw on the expertise of a diverse range of stakeholders in developing its programs. PAC makes recommendations to Council on significant strategic program issues and oversees the work of the various Program Planning Committees.

The College develops new programs from proposals made by judicial officers, program planning committees, government agencies and feedback received from program participants.

Program Advisory Committee