The High Court’s 2015/2016 annual report states (as every annual report has for the past decade) that:

the numbers of Full Court hearings and decisions in 2015–16 were comparable with averages for both during the past 10 years.

However, as noted here last year, the number of published judgments in 2014 (49) and 2015 (53)  were among the fifteen lowest in the High Court’s history. With three judgments released today, 2016 equals 2015’s number of published judgments.

As previously noted, counting High Court judgments is not straightforward, because of changing practices in judgment publication (notably past courts’ willingness to issue lengthy substantive judgments on special leave applications.) The judgments published by the High Court typically include some minor judgements – single judge decisions and interlocutory rulings – that seemingly reflect publishing preferences in individual judges. This year, there were four such judgments, leaving 49 substantive judgments in 2016, one more than each of the last two years. The final counts of substantive judgments for the French Court are:

• 16 (September-December 2008)
• 52 (2009)
• 49 (2010)
• 49 (2011)
• 50 (2012)
• 57 (2013)
• 48 (2014)
• 48 (2015)
• 49 (2016)

totalling 418 judgments over eight and a third years, or just over 50 per year. To take a tabloid approach, the Court’s average 50 substantive judgments cost the taxpayer (using 2016’s figures) approximately $20 million dollars in net expenses maintaining the Court plus about $4 million in the salaries of the seven judges (not counting pensions), amounting to roughly $480,000 per judgment. Those costs to the taxpayer must be weighed against the benefits of the Court’s judgments, which (typically) can’t be quantified, plus any other benefits that flow from the Court’s operations. At the same time, the end of the French Court coincides with some state judges calling for a new intermediate court of appeals to increase the Australian judicial system’s capacity to develop the nation’s law.

By way of comparison, here are the numbers (using the same methodology) for the Gleeson Court:

• 34 (June-December 1998)
• 60 (1999)
• 54 (2000)
• 58 (2001)
• 54 (2002)
• 66 (2003)
• 60 (2004)
• 79 (2005)
• 63 (2006)
• 61 (2007)
• 43 (January-August 2008)

That is 632 substantive judgments over 10 years and 2 months, averaging 62 per year, or 12 above the French Court’s average. Even the Gleeson Court’s lowest years (2000 and 2002) were well above the French Court average, and above all but one of its years (2013)

And, because I’ve got nothing else to do but mark supplementary exams, here are all the various  averages I’ve worked out:

• French Court: 50 substantive judgments per year
• Gleeson Court: 62 substantive judgments per year
• Brennan Court: 56 substantive judgments per year
• Mason Court: 60 substantive judgments per year
• McLachlin Court (Supreme Court of Canada): 72 judgments per year
• Neuberger Court (Supreme Court of the United Kingdom): 74 judgments per year
• Phillips Court (Supreme Court the United Kingdom): 58 judgments per year
• Roberts Court (Supreme Court of the United States): 80 opinions per year

Of course, comparisons to the past and overseas are dangerous, due to differences in judgment practice,  court jurisdiction and composition, legal context and litigant behaviour. The question of why the French Court appears to have fewer substantives per year than roughly comparable courts is one that needs further analysis. Given that substantive judgments are the High Court’s principal output, one appropriate location for such analysis is the Court’s own annual reports.