Hi all,
I currently have an Intervention order that I intend to contest. At the last hearing, through my duty lawyer, I requested further and better particulars and the magistrate granted this. He set a date for this a little over a month before my directions hearing, and this date has now passed. I have called the court a couple of times since that date and asked if further and better particulars had been submitted and was told that they had not. I asked what consequences there would be for it being late, or even not submitted at all, and they said they could not discuss this as it was a matter of the magistrate to decide.
So my question is, are there any consequences in practice? I am also confused about whether the case can actually proceed if the further and better particulars are not submitted, because my understanding was that by asking for further and better particulars, that would be essentially asking for them to state their case in more detail so that I may know how to proceed at the directions hearing, and therefore defend myself against it.
If they do not provide it, how can I prepare my defence properly? Does it mean that they can only present their case on the basis of the text of the interim order without any elaboration, since to introduce anything further would be new? How does it actually work? As my time with the duty lawyer was brief at the last hearing, we did not really discuss how the next step would work in practice. They simply recommended that we should get further and better particulars first and that on the day of the directions hearing, I could meet with the duty lawyer to decide how to proceed.
I currently have an Intervention order that I intend to contest. At the last hearing, through my duty lawyer, I requested further and better particulars and the magistrate granted this. He set a date for this a little over a month before my directions hearing, and this date has now passed. I have called the court a couple of times since that date and asked if further and better particulars had been submitted and was told that they had not. I asked what consequences there would be for it being late, or even not submitted at all, and they said they could not discuss this as it was a matter of the magistrate to decide.
So my question is, are there any consequences in practice? I am also confused about whether the case can actually proceed if the further and better particulars are not submitted, because my understanding was that by asking for further and better particulars, that would be essentially asking for them to state their case in more detail so that I may know how to proceed at the directions hearing, and therefore defend myself against it.
If they do not provide it, how can I prepare my defence properly? Does it mean that they can only present their case on the basis of the text of the interim order without any elaboration, since to introduce anything further would be new? How does it actually work? As my time with the duty lawyer was brief at the last hearing, we did not really discuss how the next step would work in practice. They simply recommended that we should get further and better particulars first and that on the day of the directions hearing, I could meet with the duty lawyer to decide how to proceed.