A shortage of up to 30 per cent of justices of the peace has prompted a recruitment drive to fill 800 positions to end the acute difficulty many people are facing in getting urgent legal documents signed.

The problem in finding qualified people, particularly in central Melbourne, to witness anything from a statutory declaration to a burial permit prompted one man set up his own pro bono firm to assist people with legal matters after he tried nine times in a single afternoon to get an affidavit signed.

After a fruitless search for a justice of the peace, Dr Peter Macmillan set up a pro bono law firm. Credit:Simon Schluter

The COVID-19 lockdowns were a key cause of the problem in not only causing a loss of trained volunteers but also an exodus from signing stations in law courts, hospitals and police stations.

“The difficulty was that we had about 100 signing centres throughout Victoria and pretty much all of those were closed,” said Paul Mracek, president of the Royal Victorian Association of Honorary Justices, the peak volunteer body for the state’s 3500 JPs and bail justices, who sign more than 1.5 million documents and assist more than 350,000 people each year.

Some document-signing stations in hospitals and police stations which closed during the pandemic have still not been restaffed.

The problem is more pronounced in central Melbourne. “You haven’t got people going there, so JPs were not available,” Mracek said.

There was a particular problem with divorce papers, he said. “You can’t go to a chemist to get divorce papers signed, they don’t have the authority to do it.”

Even in this digital age, justices of the peace, public notaries and other legal officials need to sign about 580 different documents including witnessing personal affidavits for court cases, statutory declarations, certifying academic qualifications and visa applications and renewals.

Omnibus legislation in 2020 allowed for the temporary witnessing of affidavits, statutory declarations, powers of attorney and wills and other documents to be moved online. It was made permanent last year. But the online system can’t be used for certified true copies of academic records or visa applications.

The JP shortage in central Melbourne was so acute that after Peter Macmillan went to nine different locations last November, including a police station, court buildings and even a Chemist Warehouse, in a failed quest to find a qualified person, he decided to set up a pro bono law firm.

Macmillan, himself a lawyer, was in the city needing a personal affidavit witnessed urgently. He gave up and called on a university lawyer friend for help.

He set up a pro bono legal service, Peter Macmillan & Associates, and tipped off security guards and receptionists at all the locations he had sought help from. Now he has assisted more than 300 clients since last December.

“We are still in the long-tail era of paper forms, and will be for a few more years. People are literally roaming the streets looking for help, and they’re the ones I help (as funnelled to me by very relieved receptionists, guards and pharmacists).”

He says that often the tech options have not filtered down to desperate people “on the street” getting divorced, seeking an intervention order or wanting academic records certified.

“I started by sitting in Brunetti between 2pm and 4pm in Flinders Lane at that big long bench.

“Honorary justices are often required at the midpoint of a fraught legal process. I would have someone cry every week in my office. Last week, I had three people cry in my office. They just can’t cope with what is happening with the legal system; they are just so stressed.

“A lot of these people feel very lonely. The law is confusing enough anyway, and to do it all by yourself is very hard.”

Justices of the peace played an important role in providing a valuable and accessible service to the community during and outside business hours, a Department of Justice spokeswoman said.

“The Department of Justice and Community Safety is currently recruiting positions in Local Government Areas with particularly low numbers of JPs,” she said.

“We are committed to ensuring Victorians can continue to access high-quality JP services they deserve.”

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