The days of the more gentle pace – when a ‘‘Magistrate’s Lunch’’ was code for three pots and a packet of chips – are long gone, with all Victoria’s 120 magistrates facing unprecedented workloads. We have more police than ever before and they are arresting people at record rates. We have tightened bail, restricted parole and toughened some sentences, which means we have an unprecedented number of prisoners – a figure that will continue to rise over the next few years. Effectively we have built a superhighway between crime and punishment and in the middle is the bottleneck that is the Magistrates Court. It is supposed to be a roundabout, dispensing participants in several directions – including the front door to freedom or the side one to a prison van – but too often the basic components required for reasoned decisions just fail to arrive. Consider these facts: magistrates hear more than 120,000 intervention orders a year (10 years ago the figure was about 25,000) finalise around 200,000 crime cases and issue more than 60,000 arrest warrants. Magistrates hear around 250,000 civil and criminal actions a year, which is about 90 per cent of all cases, and so if you are unlucky enough to go to court as a witness, victim or suspect, it is likely to be here. In the so-called superior courts the accused is legally represented, the brief of evidence long completed and counsel usually well prepared. If the Supreme Court sometimes has the etiquette of the Melbourne Club, then the Magistrates is the legal version of a moshpit.

There is another growing pressure on magistrates. A section of the public believe they are "soft", don’t reflect community standards and are out of touch with reality. In the past six months, two magistrates have taken their own lives. Stephen Myall, magistrate, died on March 14, 2018. Such is the stress that Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen has ordered all his colleagues to take four counselling days a year to try and manage stress loads. He also wants the government to appoint more magistrates. Ms Popovic, who has been a magistrate for nearly 30 years, tells us she has 27 matters listed before her but the number will grow and change as the day begins. ‘‘You jump on the bench and are thrown the files. You have to make quick decisions knowing they have a real impact on people’s lives.’’ The frustration for magistrates, she says, is the endless delays and the inability of many to prepare for their day in court. ‘‘It is difficult to get parties here for the final decision. I want people who attend to understand that it is less stressful to have their matter dealt with than to keep delaying.’’

We enter her court at 9.38 am to sit at the bench. The handful of people – a police prosecutor in uniform, four members of the public and a few interested parties – all rise. In the next few hours the audience below changes moment by moment – at one point there are 31 people – all wanting their matters heard. The accused appear via video link from prison, brought up from holding cells to sit in the dock, in the body of the court if on bail, or simply don’t bother to turn up at all. The first matter listed is immediately set aside as the defence lawyer is missing in action. It becomes a common thread – frantic activity followed by inaction. As cases are delayed, Ms Popovic's clerk produces more paperwork relating to fresh matters added to today’s list. It looks like back orders in an overworked restaurant kitchen. At one point Ms Popovic sees six police in court waiting to give evidence. She wants overnight remand hearings dealt with quickly so police who worked night shifts can be released. Deputy Chief Magistrate Jelena Popovic looks at the accused's file while journalist John Silvester looks like a hanging judge. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Her frustration is evident when some cases can’t be heard because the prison vans haven’t turned up. This means Legal Aid lawyers will have to talk to their clients and then make immediate submissions. Equally the prosecutors have little preparation time. ‘‘They are under enormous pressure,’’ she says. There are video links from prisons to save time. One involves a young female inmate, well groomed and not someone who appears beaten down by life. She is clear-eyed, polite, refers to the magistrate as "Your Honour" and says please and thank you with a schoolgirl's sing-song voice. ‘‘It is a growing problem, middle-class young women who see some glamour in ice and end up trophy girlfriends for gangsters,’’ Ms Popovic says. Hearing she was to be jailed, one such woman protested: ‘‘But I’m from Elwood.’’ About to hold court: magistrate Jelena Popovic. Credit:Chris Hopkins There is the homeless shoplifter caught with razor blades, perfume, yoghurt, prawns and fish. His lawyer says his client has a promise of steady accommodation that will take him off the street but it will lapse if he is not there to take the offer in two days. Ms Popovic sentences him to two days' prison, as much to keep him off the streets in the meantime.

One accused fails to appear despite a reminder from his Legal Aid lawyer and Ms Popovic cancels his bail and issues an arrest warrant. This means police have to find him to serve the order. If the average time to complete the action is four hours, then police use up 30,000 operational shifts a year finding people they have already arrested. A young African man is brought in. He turned 18 a few days earlier and looks downcast and over-awed, having spent the previous night in adult prison charged with possessing a small quantity of cannabis found when he was searched at Southern Cross Station. As Ms Popovic reads the file she becomes visibly annoyed. She apologises to the man and releases him immediately. She has since launched an inquiry into why he was imprisoned on what was a non custodial offence not brought before a court earlier. Later she says: ‘‘Did you see him? He was shattered.’’ She says no one is jailed these days for a tiny amount of cannabis and wants to know why he was treated differently. Next up is a 21-year-old who is no stranger to courts, although clearly none the wiser. Out of prison for just a few weeks he steals a van and is found passed-out on ice, with the motor running, his foot on the brake and the gear still engaged in drive. On his lap is a giant machete.

It takes Ms Popovic less than three minutes to sentence him to a further two months, telling him he had to decide ‘‘what do you love more, your daughter or ice?’’. He mumbles the right words, then says ‘‘thank you Miss’’ before being sent back to jail. His chances of rehabilitation (at least this time around) are slim. You suspect that on the outside if he sees the light it will be a flashing blue one. A man accused of arson is fast-tracked because he is creating a disturbance in the cells. He tells Ms Popovic he has stomach cancer, was recently in a coma, was to be charged with something he didn’t do and that he helped the fire brigade extinguish the blaze. He is in tears as his lawyer approaches, and is taken to be assessed by a mental health expert stationed at the court. Sometimes it is more than just a matter of crime and punishment. Next is a bail application for a slick-looking young man charged with a six-figure fraud, whose level of self-assurance contrasts with the previous occupants of the dock.

His father gives him a wink just before a policeman gives evidence detailing the allegations. Next the accused’s girlfriend heads to the witness box to testify on how stable he is but remains surprisingly vague about his internet-driven business that involves ‘‘direct sales’’, although no one seems to know what he sells. From our vantage point we can see Ms Popovic typing on the court’s antiquated computer system – granting bail but inserting strict conditions, including daily reporting to the police. But she decides to let this slickster swing in the breeze a little – to let him know bail was no certainty. She tells him he has delusions of grandeur and had concealed details of where he lived. She then makes him stand and explain the nature and obligations of bail, warning him his father will lose his $40,000 surety if he fails. ‘‘That’s not going to happen ma’am,’’ he says suddenly, looking suitably chastened. There is a break for lunch. And then it all begins again. Day after day, week after week and year after year.

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