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Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory

court of summary jurisdiction for the Australian Capital Territory, Australia

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ6731165 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory is a court of summary jurisdiction that deals with the majority of criminal law matters and the majority of small civil law matters in the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory and the Australian Antarctic Territory.

The current Chief Magistrate is Lorraine Walker, appointed with effect from 13 October 2011. However, Magistrate Glenn Theakston has been appointed Acting Chief Magistrate due to Walker's 12-month appointment as an Acting Judge of the Supreme Court. Currently eight magistrates and one special magistrate assist the Chief Magistrate in hearing matters before the Court.

The court is located on Knowles Place near London Circuit at Civic, in Canberra, in the ACT Law Courts building that it shares with the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory opened in 2019.

History

The court originated as the Court of Petty Sessions in 1930. It was the Territory's first court and Acton House was the first courthouse.

Previously, Territorians were required to travel to Queanbeyan, Goulburn or Cooma to have their legal matters heard. Under the Seat of Government Acceptance Act 1909 (Cth), state or federal courts had jurisdiction to settle legal disputes arising within the Territory. Due to the small number of matters that went before the Police Court in Queanbeyan and the District Court, this situation initially worked well.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory” as court of summary jurisdiction for the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Magistrates, Court and Australian.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2019, 1930, 1909—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Magistrates, Court and Australian providing the first useful test.
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Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6731165. Authority coordinates are -35.280, 149.128. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2019, 1930 and 1909.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Magistrates Court of the Australian Capital Territory” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.