Family Court judges come out of retirement to tackle backlog ahead of Federal Circuit Court merger

More than 20 retired Family Court judges have answered a call to come back to the bench to smash a backlog of 7,000 cases.

The backlog is due to ballooning wait times and a lag in replacing judges who have retired, leaving remaining judges with crippling workloads.

The wait to get to the Family Court can be two years and some judges have 600 cases or more on their dockets.

The retired judges have offered to help pro bono or for a minimal fee to clear thousands of custody and property cases before September, when the Family Court will merge with the Federal Circuit Court.

The federal government said there was a need to reform the court structure and a merger was the best option.