When Ken Archer was appointed the ACT's dedicated coroner in February 2022, the backlog of cases he faced stretched back seven long years.
While strong progress has been made in clearing these matters, distressed families remain confused as to the length of the process and report significant gaps in the advocacy, assistance and support provided.
An independent report has delivered a raft of reform proposals to the Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury including the establishment of a coronial advisory body with trauma-informed "user group" representation, a system already operating in Victoria.
In February this year, coroner Archer began informal meetings to discuss and consider a potential advisory body. That outcome remains unresolved
The report by independent facilitator Alistair Legge was commissioned as a key part of the "restorative coronial reform process" in the territory, aimed at capturing "key suggestions, issues and priorities for next steps".
It reported that regular meetings between the coroner, court staff, police and advocates had been sought to "develop, trial, monitor and refine possible solutions to some of the most common difficulties and challenges experienced by families in the coronial process".
However, only one meeting of all the parties, held in June last year, was achieved.
"The advocates and other families expressed [to the facilitator] their sense that this paralleled many of the difficulties they had experienced in their coronial investigations into the deaths of their loved ones," the report said.
"Advocates and other families raised [with the facilitator] their distress over the slow progress of coronial inquests, the lack of any updates despite repeated requests for information from the court, along with difficulties in receiving updates in relation to police investigations and inconsistencies in the professional approaches taken by officials from both ACT Policing and the court.
"They explained ... that these were the very issues that they had been advocating about, and that, in good faith, they trusted this process would afford them opportunities to explore and hopefully address.
"The suffering and distress this has caused, for some advocates and other families, cannot be over-emphasised."
Recommended from the report was an independent survey of families "who have experienced, or are currently experiencing", the ACT coronial process with the results provided to the key parties such as the police and the courts to "drive improvements in service delivery".
The report has urged transparency throughout the reform process and the need for a register which tracks recommendations made by the coroner from hearings, and monitors their implementation.
Ongoing reform has been welcomed by coroner Archer who has committed to clearing the older cases and has made significant progress, with 84 per cent of cases he is reviewing now under two years old.
The report supports many of the issues highlighted in the 2022-23 ACT Coroners Court annual report, in which chief coroner Lorraine Walker said a backlog of more recent matters had developed "as a result of a concentration on the reform process".
