{"id":899939,"date":"2026-06-29T03:31:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899939\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T03:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T03:31:20","slug":"wa-regional-courts-to-reopen-a-month-earlier-than-planned-after-security-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899939\/","title":{"rendered":"WA regional courts to reopen a month earlier than planned after security issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

A security shortfall that left more than 20 regional Western Australian courts closed, creating delays, dislocation and reduced access to justice, has been resolved.<\/p>\n

The state’s top judicial officers last month announced the courts would shut for about 12 weeks due to a dispute between the Justice Department and police about the staffing of security personnel.<\/p>\n

The circuit courts, located in regional areas such as Fitzroy Crossing, Newman and Exmouth, are not open every day, but rather at certain times of the year when they are visited by travelling judicial officers.<\/p>\n

Attorney-General Tony Buti has now confirmed those services can be guaranteed from August 3, about a month earlier than expected, because additional police auxiliary officers have been trained.<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Attorney-General Tony Buti says the regional courts can open a month earlier than planned. (ABC News: Courtnery Withers\u00a0)<\/p>\n

“There’s six [officers] that have now been trained [and] are ready to go to these regional courts to provide the security,” he told 102.5 ABC Perth.<\/p>\n

“And there’s funding [for] up to 20, and they should be available from early August.”<\/p>\n

Cases rescheduled<\/p>\n

Dr Buti said the Justice Department was in the process of looking at rescheduling cases that had been affected by the closures.<\/p>\n

Accused criminals flown from remote areas as courts shut<\/a><\/p>\n

WA Police have been forced to fly some accused criminals out of remote communities since the start of this month due to regional court closures sparked by a security dispute.<\/p>\n

“The parties involved will be informed of that as soon as possible,” he said.<\/p>\n

The closures resulted in police having to transport more than 157 people from regional communities to major centres, including by via the air wing, to face court<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Legal advocates said that had left people stranded in those communities in some cases, including a 16-year-old with no accommodation, family support or transport home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Justice Department said it had been providing accommodation and transport support to people in those situations.<\/p>\n

Increasing demand on police<\/p>\n

Police Commissioner Col Blanch first signalled in December 2024 that he wanted officers withdrawn from court security services.<\/p>\n

He said increasing demand for police in the community, including for family and domestic violence incidents, was being hampered by officers being tied up at courthouses.<\/p>\n

\"Exterior<\/p>\n

The Fitzroy Crossing courthouse in WA’s remote Kimberley is among those closed. (ABC News: Erin Parke)<\/p>\n

Dr Buti said while a review of police resources had been dealt with by contracting security officers to manage courthouses, a further complication arose in April.<\/p>\n

“The police indicated they were withdrawing their services from court custody, so that’s the operation of the lock-ups, and private security firms don’t have the legislative power to operate them,” he said.<\/p>\n

Three-month closure for regional and remote courthouses<\/a><\/p>\n

Western Australia’s top judges have released a public notice saying many courthouses in regional and remote areas will close for at least three months due to a lack of security.<\/p>\n

The short-term solution was to train extra police auxiliary officers, who were unsworn and unarmed, but that could not be done soon enough to avoid the closure.<\/p>\n

“Obviously someone in my position \u2026 is never happy when access to courts is impacted in this way,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr Buti said.<\/p>\n

“And that’s why we’ve been focused on trying to find a resolution and strengthening arrangements so we could resume earlier than was scheduled, so [I am] really pleased that we were able to bring that forward.”<\/p>\n

‘Should never have happened’<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a longer term plan is being worked on to find an alternative to police-led court security and custodial services.<\/p>\n

Dr Buti said “a lot of work has to be done” before any details of that plan could be revealed publicly.<\/p>\n

Nationals leader Shane Love said the closures were a crisis that “should never have happened”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Nationals MP Shane Love says serious questions remain over the court closures. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

“This announcement comes only after months of sustained pressure from the opposition and intense public scrutiny, and while communities will welcome the reopening of their local courts, serious questions remain,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The government must explain how many victims, witnesses and accused persons were affected, how much taxpayers spent transporting people hundreds of kilometres to access justice, and what safeguards are now in place to ensure this never happens again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A security shortfall that left more than 20 regional Western Australian courts closed, creating delays, dislocation and reduced…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":899940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,364481,364486,364480,12803,15428,175590,50,14737,8631,364483,364482,278,15775,364484,364485,8633,364487,8632,14362,14361],"class_list":["post-899939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-australia","tag-court-closures","tag-courthouse-closures","tag-courts-closed","tag-district-court","tag-justice-department","tag-magistrates-court","tag-news","tag-perth","tag-perth-news","tag-regional-court-closures","tag-regional-courts-closed","tag-supreme-court","tag-wa","tag-wa-court-closures","tag-wa-courthouses","tag-wa-courts","tag-wa-justice","tag-wa-news","tag-wa-politics","tag-wa-pols"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}