Legal Unit 3 AOS 2 Flashcards
CAV (definition and desc)
Consumer Affairs Victoria regulates cons law, aiming to help ensure Vics are informed about cons law, and to ensure businesses are complying with these laws
CAV (responsibilities)
- Advises Vic Gov on cons leg
- Provides info and guidance to educate ppl on cons laws, their rights+resp.
- Enforces compliance w/ cons law
- (limited circum) provides consumers/traders and landlords/tenants w/ disp res proc.
CAV (purposes)
- Help people agree on disp res efficiently without any cost or too much time
- Help parties reach res consistent w/ law (compliance focus so that breaker of law is aware and won’t again)
CAV (who is helped)
Only tenants and consumers, not landlords or traders
CAV (jurisdiction)
Between cons/supp
- Damaged/faulty, service w/o care+skill, buying cars (warranty, price or condition)
Between ten/LL
- Rental agg, rent, signing/ending lease, rental appl, repairs
CAV (DRMs used)
- Primarily phone based
- Some cases call for in-person concil (usually specialist knowl)
CAV (Appropriateness)
- Within jurisdiction (no family law or discrim disp)
- Prev attempt to resolve
- Non-trivial
- Breach of leg or failure to comply (more likely to involve) - Vulnerable or disad. cons/tenant
- Dealt w/ by VCAT (won’t intervene)
- If negotiation possible
- Binding order necessary?
- Take CAV seriously
- Formality preferred
- Size
- Urgent (court better)
CAV (Strengths)
- Free
- Informal/over phone, removes anxieties
- Procedural fairness, both sides opportunity
- Assesses disputes indiv, no wasting time where concil is useless
- Process helps parties resolve themselves, no forcing outcome
CAV (Weaknesses)
- Limited to consumer/tenancy
- No power to compel parties to partic.
- No power to enforce decisions reached in concil
- Not all cases accepted, concil serv limited
- Large, complex disp not approp.
Tribunal
A disp res body that deals with a limited area of law in which they have expertise, usually cheaper than courts and more efficient in res disp
VCAT (definition and desc)
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal is a disp res body that hears a range of civil and admin disputes in Vic
VCAT (facts)
- Est in 1998 in the VCAT Act 1998 (Vic)
- Receives > 85000 claims a yr
- Made up of VCAT pres (SC judge), vice-pres (CC judges), deputy pres, senior + ordinary members
VCAT (purpose 1)
Low cost
- Around $70 standard fee (Jul 1 23)
- Tiers = corporate, standard, health care card holders aims to make corps pay more and card holders receive free/nominal fees
- No hearing fees for claims <$100k or rental disp res in a day, others may incur fees
- Many lists = no pre-trial proc
- 80% self rep
VCAT (purposes 2,3,4)
- Accessible (locations across Vic, phone hearings, online appls, less formal procs)
- Efficient (constantly aims to reduce wait times, more eff due to lack of pre-trial procs)
- Independent (members are indep and act as unbiased adjudicators)
VCAT (jurisdiction)
- Gets power to hear disp thru statutes (such as ###)
- Exclusive jur. over residential tenancies, human rights and planning/enviro disp
- Cannot hear neighbor/employ disp, disp involving state/fed law or where parties live in sep Aus states
VCAT (DRMs used - mediation)
- Deed/TOS often drawn up
- No need for hearing if settled here
- Fast track med/hrg if about G&S, in Civ Claims List and < $10k, usually conducted on same day