Small Claims Tribunals: An Effective Alternative To The Court System?

The development of tribunals as alternatives to the court system for relatively minor disputes has been accompanied by disagreement about their desirability. This has led to moves to reform the Magistrates Court system so that the need for Tribunals will disappear. These reforms involve adopting many of the forms and procedures of the tribunals and abandoning others. At the same time there have been calls for the establishment of new tribunals. No evaluation has been made of how effectively these tribunals have fulfilled their original aims yet changes to them are proposed and the current tribunals are being used as models for further reforms. This paper reports results from a survey of 1670 people who used the Victorian Small Claims Tribunal and helps highlight some of the Tribunal's strengths and weaknesses. As such it is relevant to proposals for reforms which will affect people's access to the law to solve minor disputes.