6 - Fusion–Fission–Fusion

Summary

New South Wales was very late to receive the Judiacture Act system that effected fusion, and has been significant in discussions of fusion since for that reason. But did New South Wales need to administer law and equity separately in the first place? This chapter shows that when the Supreme Court was established, law and equity were administered without different courts or parts of the one court. There was already fusion, in that sense. But later, under colonial instruction, the fused court was differentiated when rules of court were made to replicate the procedures of the Court of Chancery at Westminster. In time, that differentiation became entrenched, and acquired some of the defects of the dual system abolished in England in 1875. Although the original set-up of the court did not require fusion – since it was already fused – by the 1960s fusion was needed, and came in 1972. The chapter shows the influence of local judicial figures and local events on experiences of fusion.